• ' r ■ i' / f 

•f «4 «• 

, • ,4 . i « ^ 

.i* % y . » ^ 4 

I . •» tf ^ 


/ ji V'^fj-V 

♦, /'• i' ^ ^ 

vr*5*'"-'!>*'^^-'’;^ 

• » 4 -- • ' 4 < # .• 4 

V ^ 4 V« 44 du « I A 

t:,' < f • • .;* V J f ' ^ 3 T 

VC /• • * V'* y4 ^ > 

5 ,4 1 <v f j* <4 t< •» -j f 

f ^ F . % 4 4 7« A« . ^ 


1/ ;-» 
- < 


% «* 
<=4 

^ y •* 




-I w r - 1 >; i r /. •*. - • 

* ^ ^ i W. * ? 

' i i¥ 4 

« kl A 4 « 

1 4 . 4 . « , H 

»*• t • •» « 

4 * ^ J « 

^ V .4 i V , 4 ^ 

F ^ :4 4 « i 

«..».» y 4- 1 
. 4 si U. 

. » • ♦ ^ • 

y •. * ^1 A ^ J* • 

^ t . i ♦ .'♦ 

^•* 5 '♦ . »t . 

; *; ‘ ‘ ' r r: 

'4 .J • *T • •^ 

* O'/ . '» 

•■ *. . t . •'. 

"• V* 4 4 t.4 

* * I ? * 4' , ’’-4' '. ^ ^ ^ •♦ 1' ^ J / V I 

. t 4 4 . 4f ^ / 4 r« 


..«•, j/-<i *•• - 

. ^ 4 4 . 4f * 3 * « 4 ‘ « ! J > ^ 

f*4 . •• ^ 4 J • > i t ^ ✓ 4 '. 1 f t 

^ / • il . • ^ I ♦•. , i/ ^» ;.( ..I 

4 ^ V / % . '4 4 • << .' 1 J t 4 -^1 

•4 O ,4 4 .4 ;‘ < . 4| .• 4 ^ ti . V 

. ^. V i * » ‘i »4 , 4 . F '• 

*4 1* / #•««!*>« I*.'* 

.4 -( ’4 /V •« « I 1v ^ I S • . I 


.'t ' / *< '» I ,'4^4 ^iC • '< , 

..^’^..‘*••^4■V•*w‘^ •'^4 MV 

^ . 4 4 4^ ^ 'I' ^ • 4 W > ^ ^ 

^ 4". 


V v « « ^ 4 A *W 4 ’ • 

i .< • '4 > . - # ♦ > ' 4 s r 


. -• ; t. 1 4; ,• • • • ;.4 • « , « 

*» I •: • K M -f %* •».♦•! 

. . • \% » r > I » % 4 % 4 > 1 * , 

, 4 . * \ : € ^ % 4 ' K • ^ ^ 

^ ^ ' i?** y '* J ' •. ^ ‘ 


• « , « 4 

4 . « • f 

. - w'Vx 

». 4.4 


f*’4 • I ‘•i 4 ^ • 

• ■:5 • J" J' ; .; > .♦’ ••■•'.i* ^ ‘a 

M k 4 . ¥ *' \ '^ */ V « : 4 V. ' 

I I. .4 :4 I • *4 '4 -4 .« 4 

-4 . < * • •k ’**> j % c >‘ « ^ ¥ 

^ O ’ • o • \ • ^ 

• ' < I j M /'' .♦ t . • j^o '• ' »• 

(‘ 4 ' •- 

' •' % '-..r. ; i ; v. v ;* 


% U '% 1 « f > » < i . 

f" .•r.-*,r?v*, . V 

i ' i* ■*' *\4 ' nyk’ *\r 4 \ 

.’'*4"'.4'ir'f'/:.4'y 

t t * 4 s 4 /4 . M “1 ’• ^. :^^ * ' 


V i .40 '4 \< 

K } t ^4 Sk . s 


• « 'V 

V .*4 ' 


O I 
4 « <« . 


y.y t A :^ri 

'•^.■^■v,-... ■. ^ . 'Ui. 



















. J^(if//0^ •>> .- ‘s 

^ o ^ ® (F^ 

> y c^. ^yjjyj^p V 

*> 1 ' 


J c > \ > 

0 0- . ^ A' 




* ^ 

■ ^ ^ . ' cl' ^ 

0 N 6 ^ Of.'''' ^ , fl ’^/> ' 0 , X 

OS .c V ^ . O. .0^ 



^ -f* 


; V^' 




9 1 


,0 


0 



o 0 


s -» • / 


c. ^■^'^.' S 

°,i, * 0 S <■ ’ v-}.^ 

// C' 



^ 'p 



^ y-v =W?r ss, 

% '\' “ ' ^ ^ ' * 5W' ' * • ' 

* 0 H 0 ^ V * n . ^ ^ ^ s'' f , 3 N O ^ 


✓ 

. 5/* 

L <t 

s 

v^ 

f * 

■o. 


rv 



s'*" 

* r 


.>i 



>* V 

o o' 


y> 



,# ":Mk^ 

aO^ '' I 1, 1, ^ 0 , X ^ *f J < s 

^ - ^O o' f ^ V^ 







o5 

^v“ <#■ 



vx^:;^ V yV-' -z^ «, \ <<> 

’* xS ’S‘‘.', >*' <0 

■V C- v' » ' * ” f ■> ,0^ ' ' ' < 

' S,<'^'‘' S <;<■ <; 

>:v ^ , .vV- - ^ ^•v>^ 


^ «v % 

^ 0 • X ,6 ^ 

. 0 c * *<^ 

■° - -f 

K ^•. A Pi^Sfc v/* *• 


0 ^ 


^V ^ ' ' » -f '^b 

^ ^K\ WiZ/r^y^^y^ ^ V -I. 

' = H -7- . - '!^ 

'S*”-"’ »' “»7 S *" 

r . f? 5) ^- 



- .xV -«J> -.. ° '■y/ ,v 


i>^. '»/ 



\0°< 


^ '^oo' 

*► 


vO 


0^ s'* " ’ s, 

4^^ * _ / •<» 






i'- 


Sr’ 



- • \y ^ 


^ i t S ^ '\ 0 -f ,V aO 

^ 'f^ i‘ ^ ^ 

- '-^o = '^''^ 

,'f 






•'^ v' ' '' '^' 

.V ^ 

0^ * 

,1^"' ' '* ^ 

y <I O C^_ ^ 

■> 0 N 0 \ ^ 

/ ^C.' \^ -?- "^ * ” A >” s 

'- •^^v. •■^' ' ^iJ\° ^ ''^' " 

, - ,„_™ '‘ 'V - ^^M'% 2 , _ „ „ 

%. ^0..^ 0^0, < 

'■ ■■■.«« r'.^ - '** • 

>* *w V 

^ .R *r> . 0 . <\^ O 


cK h> \ r\vJ 

'Z- 3 N 0 • * 81 '’*^-^ s 

O^ ,s"" '/, \> ^' * 0 a ^ v0‘ 

O 0 ^ 

<». 


•f 

Ci 


*>^ V 

o 0 


0 oA 

> 

■%. y 

/' 

%, 

0 0 , ^ 





■<ji “ * <.''*« ^o. ^0 * t ° 

y s. -i 0 * 


' '!=•, .-i 


/x'^l • %: 

x0°-2. !,|gl^= ,<i:i ''^' 

°/. * ■. N»' ./ V .02 '•> * 



‘i, 



cf' 1^ 
t;' .\V 


? ■» 


If. ^ 0 >f K 



•» 

0 


-t 

'<r 

0 



^ a\ ^ V I 8 ^ 

"■ '*0 0^ r ^ 

"'^ O *A, '^1/ >" 

. ,. ^ ' * 

A y <1 o V C^ /- VI ' 

' c°' .n'^^. ' " 0, Rx *"'*,xy s'-’^.v''^ 


n” -<■ 

















. ‘ ■ t lb r^T'r-^ 

• ’ '• ' * '*■* ■ ^ ,*<"■■ •“ ^ ‘n.'~ 

--- 


"t ‘ 

I •* 



,1 


=- ■-,* ^ ' .* r ». 

-^■*1 ““ 


UT 


- V. 


% 




« 

^ .<r- 

:•* ii 4 



' 'i 


t ' 


.f 







♦A 




4 • 


r 




4 \t^ 


i'® 


•; - =-”' '. ■;. . ■•. ••■ '-^ ■'■>'>. 
^ "- . ' : i'fA ■- ^’'■'*''K^ 





‘- • I?-' 






:‘ v^’;- ’. j-^'^'-c' ^ 




^■i£^■ ■:-».?&■:?■ ■ jas. ’IfJ 

■■■* '* - Vi ' ^ "iiPsT. ;«j^ 



t 




_» ‘ 






. f:k 


.y J, , . Y*-. ic'.'-*-;-' 




- ^ v* 3^^ 

'-5 vJ'.- 


fe-^irs'i r ■ '■>'-•*- >r,j 


9^5, 








WORKS BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. 


THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. 4to, paper, 20 cents; i6mo, 

paper, 50 cents ; cloth $i 00 

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE. 4to, paper, 20 cents ; i6mo, 
paper, 50 cents ; cloth $i 00 

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth 

$i 00 

HAND AND RING. 4to, paper, 20 cents ; i6mo, paper, illus- 
trated, 50 cents ; l6mo, cloth, illustrated . . . $i 00 

X. Y. Z. A DETECTIVE STORY. i6nio, paper, 25 cents 

THE MILL MYSTERY. i6nio, paper, 50 cents ; cloth . $i 00 

7 TO 12 A DETECTIVE STORY. i6mo, paper, 25 cents. 

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth 

$i 00 

THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES. i6mo, 
paper, 40 cents ; cloth . . . . . . $ 75 

CYNTHIA WAKEHAM’S MONEY. i6mo, paper, 50 cents; 

cloth . . . . . . . . . . $i 00 
MARKED “PERSONAL.” i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth $i 00 
MISS HURD : an Enigma. i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth $i 00 


THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK. Oblong 
32mo, cloth ........$ 50 

DR. IZARD. i6mo, paper, 50 cents ; cloth . . . $i 00 

THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS. 

i6mo, cloth $r 00 

RISIFFS DAUGHTER. A DRAMA. i6mo, cloth . $i 00 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, New York and London. 


• ♦ 


> 

* 

V 


. f • *’ •• ► 

V* •' / • w 


-yr./ 

! •* • .> *f. 

. V 




V 


w 


' *• 

• • 

• ^ , t 


-* 


V 


V • 
«« 1 




* 


/ 


'• 


I 


• « 


v-' 


f 




it 


• ^ 


■ r, ■^'•i.>.-; »• 

♦ V . i 


v« 

• 


<t *. ' 

; * 

. I 

'•a 

• " V . 

' *-y. - - 

■ ' ■ *., 


f 


> * 
i 


#1 
t • 


• « 


» 


• -V 


i. 


■ * . 

I 

H 




» • 


> • » 


i. 




• 

m '■' * • * 


V w . 


r 


€% 






i. 


/ J 


:» > 




- 

'-i, y • 


• > « 

• » 


• 


• • 


4 • 


f ^ 

y* 

'V 


r- . 


I •• 


s - 


I • 




I . 


* • 


I i 


*• 


•y , 


« • 

' ^ 




I 






t • • • • ^ 


t 




'♦ - 


t 


» 







i 


I 


r 



DOCTOR IZARD 


BY 

ANNA KATHARJ^j^GREEN 

(Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) 

ii 

Author of “ The Leavenworth Case,” “ Marked ‘ Personal,’ ” 
” The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock,” etc., etc. 





G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

Press • 

1895 




I 




Copyright 1895 
BY 

ANNA KATHARINE ROHLFS 
Entered at Stationer’s Hall, London 
All Rights Reserved 


1 


Ubc Tftnicftcrbocfeer press, UAcw jjorf: 




To My Friend 
JOSEPH FRANCIS DALY 


V ^ 




» 






% 


>/ .' ^ 




•> 


i 


> 



« • ^ 


%V 


t 


a 


> 


t 


V 















» 



» 





« 


^ % 


A 




S. 


* I 


•^1 

^ ^ • . ♦ 


I 


I 


V . - 
^ , • 


•9 








<^9 


* 


I 


9 4» 





4 


• V 




4 



r» 

f 


’•T 1 • ‘ • • 








9 

$ 








. J * 


V 7 


% ^ 


I ^ 



T 



4 


V 


» 




t 






I 


4 


« 


« 




t 




% 





> 


9 



» 



-%t 

ro 

•- 







V 




> 

i 


'M 

1 .4 


to 



CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

No. Thirteen, Ward Thirteen . . i 

Hadley’s Cave . . . . .22 

The Young Heiress .... 29 

Dr. Izard ". ..... 45 

Nocturnal Wanderings . . . 71 

The Portrait . . . . .92 

What the Stroke of a Bell can Do . 97 ' 

The House ON the Hill . . .114 

Ask Dr. Izard . . . . .125 

An Incredible Occurrence . . *136 

Face to Face . . . . . 145 

At Home . . . . . *152 

A T EST 157 

Grace . . . . . . .167 

The Small, Slight Man . . .186 

The Letter. ..... 206 

Midnight at the Old Izard Place . 220 

A Decision ...... 230 

To-Morrow . . . . . *237 

Dr. Izard’s Last Day in Hamilton . 251 


4 


I 









V'' 

* 


t 

i. 


§ 




I 


< 


« 






t 


I 


I'x 




i 







A 


) 




i 






« 

% 


s 


\ 


4 


V 





k ~ • 



\ ‘ 


9 





% 



» 



.1 

J 


I 



♦ ' . 


'. tf 





9 




. > 

r 



s 


■^. ■ 

. « -t 

; \ 

* 


.V * * 1 ♦ > 

■ ^ . V, ^ 


^ A 






4 ^ 


f 




4 







\ 



% 

I 


\ 



^ • ►f 

» 


I 

iT • ^ 

^ 9 

^ -i s ■; 


r 



^ ^ .to . ■ • t 



DOCTOR IZARD. 


PART I. 

A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 

I. 

NO. THIRTEEN, WARD THIRTEEN. 

I T was after midnight. Quiet had settled 
over the hospital, and in Ward 13 there 
was no sound and scarcely a movement. The 
nurse, a strong and beautiful figure, had fallen 
into a reverie, and the two patients, which were 
all the ward contained, lay in a sleep so deep 
that it seemed to foreshadow the death which 
was hovering over them both. 

They were both men. The one on the right 
of the nurse was middle-aged ; the one on the 


Dodor Izard. 


left somewhat older. Both were gaunt, both 
were hollow-eyed, both had been given up by 
the doctors and attendants. Yet there was one 
point of difference between them. He on the 
left, the older of the two, had an incurable 
complaint for which no remedy was possible, 
while he on the right, though seemingly as ill 
as his fellow, was less seriously affected, and 
stood some chance of being saved if only he 
would arouse from his apathy and exert his 
will toward living. But nothing had as yet been 
found to interest him, and he seemed likely to 
die from sheer inanition. It is through this 
man’s eyes that we must observe the scene 
which presently took place in this quiet room. 

He had been lying, as I have said, in a 
dreamless sleep, when something — he never 
knew what — made him conscious of himself and 
partially awake to his surroundings. He found 
himself listening, but there was no sound ; and 
his eyes, which he had not unclosed for hours, 
slowly opened, and through the shadows which 
encompassed him broke a dim vision of the 
silent ward and the sitting figure of the weary 
nurse. It was an accustomed sight, and his 


A Midnight Visitant, 


3 


eyes were softly re-closing when a sudden 
movement on the part of the nurse roused him 
again to something like interest, and though 
his apathy was yet too great for him to make 
a movement or utter a sound, he perceived, 
though with dim eyes at first, that the door at 
the other end of the ward had slowly opened, 
and that two men were advancing down the 
room to the place where the nurse stood wait- 
ing in evident surprise to greet them. One 
was the hospital doctor, and on him the sick 
man cast but a single glance ; but the person 
with him was a stranger, and upon him the at- 
tention of the silent watcher became presently 
concentrated, for his appearance was singular 
and his errand one of evident mystery. 

There was but one light in the room, and 
this was burning low, so that the impression 
received was general rather than particular. 
He saw before him a medium-sized man who 
sought to hide his face from observation, 
though this face was already sufficiently 
shielded by the semi-darkness and by the brim 
of a large hat which for some reason he had 
omitted to remove. Around his shoulders 


4 


Doctor hard. 


there hung a cloak of an old-fashioned type, 
and as he approached the spot where the nurse 
stood, his form, which had shown some dignity 
while he was advancing, contracted itself in 
such a fashion that he looked smaller than he 
really was. 

The physician who accompanied him was 
the first to speak. 

“ Is No. Twelve asleep ?” he asked. 

The nurse bowed slightly, half turning her 
head as she did so. 

The watching man was No. Thirteen, not 
No. Twelve, but his eyes shut at the question, 
perhaps because he was still overcome by his 
apathy, perhaps because his curiosity had been 
aroused and he feared to stop events by be- 
traying his interest in them. 

‘‘ I am afraid we shall have to wake him,” 
pursued the attendant physician. “ This gen- 
tleman here, who declines to give his name, 
but who has brought letters which sufficiently 
recommend him to our regard, professes to 
have business with this patient which will not 
keep till morning. Has the patient shown any 
further signs of sinking ? ” 


A Midnight Visitant, 


5 


'She answered in a cheerful tone that he had 
slept since ten without waking, and the two 
men began to approach. As they did so both 
turned toward the bed of the second sick man, 
and one of them, the stranger, remarked with 
something like doubt in his tones, “ Is this 
man as low as he looks ? Is he dying, too ?” 

The answer was a qualified one, and the 
stranger appeared to turn his back, but pres- 
ently the strained ears of the seemingly un- 
conscious man heard a breath panting near his 
own, and was conscious of some person bend- 
ing over his cot. Next minute the question 
was whispered in his hearing : 

“ Are you sure this man is asleep ?” 

The doctor, who was standing close by, 
murmured an affirmative, and the nurse to 
whom the questioner had apparently turned, 
observed without any hesitation in her slightly 
mystified tone : 

“ I have not seen him move since eight 
o’clock ; besides, if he were awake, he would 
show no consciousness. He is dying from 
sheer hopelessness, and a cannon fired at his 
side would not rouse him.” 


6 


Doctor hard. 


The “humph” which this assurance called 
forth from the stranger had a peculiar sound 
in it, but the attention which had been directed 
to No. Thirteen now passed to his neighbor, 
and the former, feeling himself for the instant 
unobserved, partially opened his eyes to see 
how that neighbor was affected by it. A few 
whispered words had accomplished what a 
cannon had been thought unable to do, and he 
was beginning to realize an interest in life, or 
at least in what was going on in reference to 
his fellow patient. The words were these : 

“ This is a hopeless case, is it ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ How long a time do you give him ? ” 

The tone was professional, though not en- 
tirely unsympathetic. 

“ Dr. Sweet says a week ; I say three 
days.” 

The stranger bent over the patient, and it 
was at this point that the watcher’s eyes 
opened. 

“ Three days is nearer the mark,” the visitor 
at last declared. 

At which the attending physician bowed. 


A Midnight Visitant, 


7 


“ I should be glad to have a few moments’ 
conversation with your patient,” the stranger 
now pursued. “ If he is unhappy, I think I 
can bring him comfort. He has relatives, you 
say.” 

“ Yes, a daughter, over whose helpless posi- 
tion he constantly grieves.” 

“ He is poor, then ? ” 

“ Very.” 

“ Good ! I have pleasant news for him. 
Will you allow me to rouse him ? ” 

“Certainly, if you have a communication 
justifying the slight shock.” 

The stranger, whose head had sunk upon 
his breast, cast a keen look around. “ I beg 
your pardon,” said he, “ but I must speak to 
the man alone ; he himself would choose it, 
but neither you nor the nurse need leave the 
room.” 

The doctor bowed and withdrew with 
marked respect ; the nurse lingered a moment, 
during which both of the sick men lay equally 
quiet and death-like ; then she also stepped 
aside. The stranger was left standing between 
the two beds. 


Doctor hard. 


Soon the sensitive ears of the watchful one 
heard these words: “Your little daughter 
sends her love.” 

Opening his eyes a trifle, he saw the stranger 
bending over the other’s pillow. A sigh which 
was not new to his ears rose from his dying 
companion, at sound of which the stranger 
added softly : 

“ You fear to leave the child, but God is 
merciful. He makes it possible for you to 
provide for her ; do you want to hear how ? ” 

A low cry, then a sudden feeble move, and 
No. Twelve was speaking in hurried, startled 
words : 

“Who are you, sir? What do you want 
with me, and what are you saying about my 
child? I don’t know you.” 

“ No ? And yet I am likely to be your 
greatest benefactor. But first take these few 
drops ; they will help you to understand me. 
You are afraid ? You need not be. I am — ” 
He whispered a name into the sick man’s ear 
which his companion could not catch. “ That 
is our secret,” he added, “ and one which I 
charge you to preserve.” 


A Midnight Visitant, • 9 

No. Thirteen, unable to restrain his curios- 
ity at this, stole another glance at the adjoin- 
ing cot from under his scarcely lifted lids. His 
moribund neighbor had risen partially on his 
pillow and was gazing with burning intensity 
at the man who was leaning toward him. 

O sir,” came from the pale and working 
lips, as he tried to raise a feeble hand. “You 
mean to help my little one, you ? But why 
should you do it ? What claim has my mis- 
fortune or her innocence on you that you 
should concern yourself with our desperate 
condition ? ” 

“ No claim,” came in the stranger’s calm but 
impressive tones. “ It is not charity I seek to 
bestow on you, but payment for a service you 
can render me. A perfectly legitimate, though 
somewhat unusual one,” he hastened to add, 
as the man’s face showed doubt. 

“ What — what is it?” faltered from the sick 
man’s lips in mingled doubt and hope. “ What 
can a poor and wretched being, doomed to 
speedy death, do for a man like you ? I fear 
you are mocking me, sir.” 

“You can be the medium — ” the words 


lO 


Doctor Izard, 


came slowly and with some hesitation — “for 
the payment of a debt I dare not liquidate in 
my own person. I owe someone — a large 
amount — of money. If I give it to you — ” 
(he leaned closer and spoke lower, but the 
ears that were listening were very sharp, and 
not a syllable was lost) “ will you give it to 
the person whom I will name?” 

“ But how ? When ? I am dying, they 
say, and ” 

“ Do not worry about the whens and hows. 
I will make all that easy. The question is, 
will you, for the sum of five thousand dollars, 
which I here show you in ten five-hundred- 
dollar bills, consent to sign a will, bequeath- 
ing this other little package of money to a 
certain young woman whom I will name ? ” 

“ Five thousand dollars ? O sir, do not 
mislead a dying man. Five thousand dollars ? 
Why, it would be a fortune to Lucy ! ” 

“ A fortune that she shall have,” the other 
assured him. 

“ Just for signing my name ? ” 

“Just for signing your name to a will which 
will bequeath the rest of your belongings. 


A Midnight Visitant, 1 1 

namely, this little package, to an equally young 
and equally unfortunate girl.” 

“It seems right. I do not see anything 
wrong in it,” murmured the dying father in a 
voice that had strangely strengthened. “ Will 
you assure me that it is all right, and that no 
one will suffer by my action ? ” 

“ Did I not tell you who I was ?” asked the 
stranger, “ and cannot you trust one of my 
reputation ? You will be doing a good act, a 
retributive act ; one that will have the bless- 
ing of Providence upon it.” 

“ But why this secrecy ? Why do you come 
to me instead of paying the debt yourself? 
Is she ” 

“ She is who she is,” was the somewhat stern 
interruption. “You do not know her ; no one 
here knows her. Will you do what I ask or 
must I turn to your companion who seems as 
ill as yourself ? ” 

“ I — I want to do it, sir. Five thousand 
dollars ! Let me feel of the bills that repre- 
sent so much.” 

There was a movement, and the sick and 
feeble voice rose again in a tone of ecstatic 


12 


Doctor hard. 


delight. “ And I need not worry any more 
about her feet without shoes and her pretty 
head without shelter. She will be a lady and 
go to school, and by and by can learn a trade 
and live respectably. Oh, thank God, sir ! 
I know who I would like to have made her 
guardian.” 

“ Then you consent ? ” cried the stranger, 
with a thrill of some strong feeling in his 
voice. 

“ I do, sir, and thank you ; only you must 
be quick, for there is no knowing how soon the 
end may come.” The stranger, who seemed 
to be equally apprehensive of the results of 
this strong excitement, raised himself upright 
and motioned to the doctor and the nurse. 

“You will say nothing of our compact,” he 
enjoined in a final whisper, as the two sum- 
moned ones approached. “ Nor will you ex- 
press surprise at the wording of the will or, 
indeed, at anything I may say.” 

“ No,” came in an almost undistinguishable 
murmur, and then there was silence, till the 
doctor and the nurse were within hearing, 
when the stranger said : 


A Midnight Visitant. 13 

“ Our friend here has a small matter of 
business on his mind. It has been my pleas- 
ure, as I perhaps intimated to you, to bring 
him a considerable sum of money which he 
had quite despaired of ever having paid him ; 
and as for reasons he is not willing to com- 
municate, he desires to bequeath a portion of 
it to a person not related to him, he naturally 
finds it necessary to leave a will. Foreseeing 
this, I had the draft of one drawn up, which, 
if agreeable to you, I will read to him in your 
presence.” 

The amazement in the nurse s eye gave 
way to a look of deference, and she bowed 
slightly. The doctor nodded his head, and 
both took their stand at the foot of the small 
cot. The man in the adjoining bed neither 
murmured nor moved. Had they looked at 
him, they would have doubtless thought his 
sleep was doing him but little good, for his 
pallor had increased and an icy sweat glistened 
on his forehead. 

Mr. Hazlitt’s property,” continued the. 
stranger in a low and mechanical tone, “con- 
sists entirely of money. Is that not so ? ” 


Doctor Izard. 


14 

he asked, smiling upon the dazed but yet 
strangely happy face of the patient lying be- 
fore him. “ Namely, this roll of bills, amount- 
ing as you see to five thousand dollars, and 
this small package of banknotes, of which the 
amount is not stated, but of whose value he is 
probably aware. Are you willing,” and he 
turned to the doctor, “ to take charge of these 
valuables, and see that they are forthcoming 
at the proper time ? ” 

The doctor bowed, glanced at his patient, 
and meeting his eager eye, took the roll of 
bills and the package, and putting them into 
his breast pocket, remarked, “ I will have them 
placed in the safe deposit vaults to-morrow.” 

“ Very well,” cried the stranger ; ‘‘ that will 
be all right, will it not ? ” he asked, consulting 
in his turn the man before him. 

Mr. Hazlitt, as they called him, gave him a 
short look, smiled again, and said: ''You 
know best ; anything, so that my Lucy gets 
her five thousand.” 

The stranger, 'straightening himself, asked 
if he could not have more light, at which the 
nurse brought a candle. Immediately the 


A Midnight Visitant, 


-15 


stranger took a paper from under his cloak 
and opened it. The nurse held the candle 
and the stranger began to read : 


The last will and testament of Abram blazlitt of Chi- 
cago, Cook county, Illinois. 

First : I direct all my just debts and funeral expenses 
to be paid. 

Second : I give, devise, and bequeath to 


“Is your daughters name Lucy, and is the 
sum you wish given her five thousand dollars 
exact ? ” asked the stranger, sitting down at 
the small table near by and taking out a pen 
from his pocket. 

“ Yes,” was the feeble response, “ five thou- 
sand dollars to Lucy Ellen, my only and much- 
beloved child.” 

The stranger rapidly wrote in the words, 
adding, “ she lives in Chicago, I suppose.” 

It was the nurse who answered r 

“ She is in this hospital, too, sir ; but not 
for any mortal complaint. Time and care 
will restore her.” 

The stranger went on reading : 


t6 


Doctor Izard, 


I give, devise, and bequeath to my only and much- 
loved child, Lucy Ellen of Chicago, Cook county, Illinois, 
the sum of five thousand dollars. 

Second : I give, devise, and bequeath to 

“ Did you say the name was Mary Earle, 

and that she lived in Hamilton, county, 

Massachusetts ? ” he interjected, looking in- 
quiringly at the man whose sagacity he thus 
trusted. 

“Yes, yes,” was the hurried, almost faint 
answer. “You know, you know; go on 
quickly, for I ’m feeling very weak.” 

They gave him stimulants, while the stranger 
rapidly wrote in certain words, which he as 
rapidly read in what one listener thought to be 
a much relieved tone. 

I give, devise, and bequeath to Mary Earle of Hamil- 
ton, county, Massachusetts, all my remaining prop- 

erty as found in the package of banknotes deposited in 
the safe deposit vaults of this city, in payment of an old 
debt to her father, and as an expression of my regret that 
my hitherto destitute circumstances have prevented me 
from sooner recognizing her claims upon me. 

Third : I appoint Dr. Cusack of the Chicago General 
Hospital sole executor of this, my last will and testa- 
ment. 


A Midnight V isitant, i 7 

Witness my hand this thirteenth day of April in the 
year eighteen hundred and ninety-two. 

/ Signed, published, and de- 
clared by the testator to be 
his last will and testament, in 
our presence, who at his re- 
/ quest and in his presence and 
in the presence of each other 
have subscribed our names 
hereto as witnesses on this 
^thirteenth day of April, 1892. 

“ Does this paper express your wishes and 
all your wishes ? ” asked the stranger pausing. 
‘‘ Is there any change you would like made or 
is the will as it stands right ? ” 

“ Right ! right ! ” came in more feeble tones 
from the fast sinking sufferer. 

“ Then if you will call in another witness, I 
will submit the paper to him to sign,” said the 
stranger turning toward the doctor. ‘‘ As 
executor you cannot act as witness.” 

The doctor turned to the nurse and a 
momentary consultation passed between them. 
Then she quietly withdrew, and in a few 
minutes returned with a man who from his 


8 


Doctor Izard, 


appearance evidently occupied some such posi- 
tion as watchman. The sick man was raised 
higher in his bed and a pen put in his hand. 

Mr. Hazlitt is about to sign his will,” ex- 
plained the stranger ; and turning to the sick 
man, he put the formal question : Is this 
paper which I .here place before you, your last 
will and testament ? And do you accept these 
two persons now before you as witnesses to 
your signing of the same ? ” 

A feeble assent followed both these ques- 
tions, whereupon the stranger put his finger 
on the place where the dying man was ex- 
pected to write his name. As he did so a 
strange sensation seemed to affect every one 
present, for the men with an involuntary 
movement all raised their eyes to the ceiling 
upon which the stooping form of the stranger 
made such a weird shadow, while the nurse 
gave evident signs of momentary perturbation, 
which she as a woman of many experiences 
would doubtless have found it hard to explain 
even to herself. 

A short silence followed, which was pres- 
ently broken by the scratching of a pen. The 


A Midnight Visitant, 19 

patient was writing his name, but how slowly ! 
He seemed to be minutes in doing it. Sud- 
denly he fell back, a smile of perfect peace 
lighting up his shrunken features. 

“ Lucy’s future is assured,” he murmured, 
and lost or seemed to lose all connection with 
the scene in which he had just played such 
an important part. 

A deep sigh answered him. Whose ? It 
had the sound of relief in it, a great soul- 
satisfying relief. Had the stranger uttered it ? 
It would seem so, but his manner was too pro- 
fessional to be the cloak of so much emotion, 
or so it seemed to all eyes but one. 

The witnesses’ signatures were soon in place, 
and the stranger rose to go. As he did so his 
eyes flashed suddenly over his shoulder and 
rested for an instant on the man who occupied 
the neighboring cot. The movement was so 
quick that No. Thirteen had scarcely time to 
close his eyes undetected. Indeed, some glint 
of the half-hidden eyeball must have met the 
stranger’s eye, for he turned quickly and bent 
over the seemingly unconscious man with a 
gaze of such intentness that it took all the 


20 


Doctor Izard, 


strength of what had once been called a most 
obstinate will for the man thus surveyed not 
to respond to it. 

Suddenly the stranger thrust his hand out 
and laid it on the unknown sufferer’s heart, 
and a slight smile crossed his features. 

“ Is there anything I can do for you ? ” were 
the words he dropped, cold and stinging, into 
the apparently deaf ear. 

But the man’s will was indomitable and an 
icy silence was the sole answer which the in- 
truder received. 

“ I have still a thousand to give away,” was 
whispered so close into his face that he felt the 
hot breath that conveyed it. 

But even these words fell, or seemed to fall, 
upon ears of stony deafness, and the stranger 
rising, moved quietly away, saying as he did 
so, “ This case here is on the mend. His 
heart has a very normal beat.” 

Some few more words were said, and he and 
his companion were left alone again with the 
nurse. 

At three o’clock No. Twelve called feebly 
for some water ; as the nurse returned from 


A Midnight Visitant, 


21 


giving it to him she felt her dress pulled 
slightly by a feeble hand. Turning to No. 
Thirteen she was astonished to see that his 
eyes were burning with quite an eager light. 

I could drink some broth,” said he. 

“ Why, you are better ! ” she cried. 

But he shook his head. “ No,” said he, 
“but — ” The voice trailed ofT into a feeble 
murmur, but the eye continued bright. He 
was afraid to speak for fear his lips would 
frame aloud the words that he had been repeat- 
ing to himself for the last two hours. “ Mary 

Earle ! Mary Earle, of Hamilton, county, 

Massachusetts.” 

He had found the interest which had been 
lacking to his recovery. 


PART II. 


THE MAN WITH THE DOG. 


II. 

Hadley’s cave. 

O N the first day of June, 1892, there could 
be seen on the highway near the small 
village of Hamilton, a dusty wanderer with a 
long beard and rough, unkempt hair. From 
the' silver streaks in the latter, and from his 
general appearance and feeble walk, he had 
already passed the virile point of life and had 
entered upon, or was about to enter upon, the 
stage of decrepitude. And yet the eyes which 
burned beneath the gray and shaggy brows 
were strangely bright, and had an alertness of 
expression which contradicted the weary bend 


22 


23 


The Man with the Dog, 

of the head and the slow dragging of the 
rough-shod feet. 

His dress was that of a farm laborer, and 
from the smallness of the bundle which he car- 
ried on a stick over his shoulder, he had evi- 
dently been out of work for some time and 
was as poor as he was old and helpless. 

At the junction of the two roads leading to 
Leadington and Wells, he stopped and drew a 
long breath. Then he sat down on a huge 
stone in the cross of the roads and, drooping 
his head, gazed long and earnestly at the 
length of dusty road which separated him 
from the cluster of steeples and house roofs 
before him. Was he dreaming or planning, or 
was he merely weary ? A sound at his side 
startled him. Turning his head, he saw a dog. 
It was a very lean one, and its attitude as it 
stood gazing into his face with wistful eyes, 
was one of entreaty. 

“ Come ! ” it seemed to say, and ran off a few 
steps. The tramp, for we can call him noth- 
ing else, though there was a dash of something 
like refinement in his look and manner, stared 
for a moment after the animal, then he slowly 


24 


Doctor Izard. 


rose. But he did not follow the dog. The 
disappointment of the latter was evident. 
Coming back to the man, he sniffed and pulled 
at his clothes, and cast such beseeching looks 
upward out of his all but human eyes that the 
man though naturally surly was touched at 
last and turned in the direction indicated by 
the dog. 

“ After all, why not ? ” he murmured, and 
strolled on after his now delighted guide, up 
one of the roads to a meadow terminating in 
an abrupt and rocky steep. 

“ Why am I such a fool ? ” he asked himself 
when half way across this stubbly field. But 
at the short bark of the dog and the irresisti- 
ble wagging of the animal’s tail, he stumbled 
on, influenced no doubt by some superstitious 
feeling which bade him regard the summons 
of this unusually sagacious beast as an omen 
he dared not disregard. At the foot of the 
rocks he, however, paused. Why should he 
climb them at the bidding of a dog ? But his 
guide was imperative, and pulled at his trou- 
sers so energetically that he finally mounted a 
short distance, when to his surprise he came 


The Man with the Dog, 25 

upon a cave into the entrance of which the 
dog plunged with a short sharp cry of pleas- 
ure and satisfaction. 

Hesitating to follow, the man stood for a 
moment gazing back upon the town and the 
stretch of lovely landscape before him. It was 
an outlook of great charm, but I doubt if he 
noticed its beauties. Some thought of an 
unpleasant and perplexing nature furrowed his 
brow, and it was with a start that he turned, 
when the dog, reissuing from the cave, re- 
newed his blandishments, and by dint of bark 
and whine attempted to draw him into the 
opening before which he stood. 

What was in hiding there ? Curiosity bade 
him look, bht a certain not unreasonable ap- 
prehension deterred him. He finally, how- 
ever, overcame his fear, if fear it was, and fol- 
lowed the dog, that no sooner saw him start 
toward the entrance than he gave a leap of 
delight and bounded into the cave before him. 
In another moment the man had entered also 
and was looking around for the helpless or 
wounded human being whom he evidently 
expected to find. 


26 


Doctor Izard. 


But no such sight met his eyes. On the 
contrary, he saw nothing but an empty cave 
with here and there a sign of the place having 
been used as a domicile at a recent date. In 
one corner was a litter of boughs from which 
the covering had manifestly been roughly torn, 
and in the ledges overhead were to be seen 
spikes of wood, upon which utensils had 
doubtless been hung, for amid the debris of 
broken rock beneath lay an old tin pan with 
the handle broken off. 

As there was nothing in this to interest the 
man he turned and kicked at the inoffensive 
beast who had lured him out of his path on 
such a fruitless errand. But the latter instead 
of resenting this harshness only renewed his 
previous antics, and finally succeeding by them 
in re-attracting the man’s attention, led the way 
to a remote corner of the cave, where the 
shadows were thickest. Here he stood with 
his paws raised against the rocky sides, look- 
ing up over his head and then back at the man 
in a way which left no doubt as to his mean- 
ing. 

He wanted the man to climb, and when the 


27 


The Man with the Dog. 

man approaching saw the few rocky steps that 
had been hewn out of the wall, his curiosity 
was renewed and he lent himself to the effort, 
old as he was and tired with many a long hour 
of tramping in the summer sun. 

Above him he perceived a dark hole, and 
into this he presently thrust his head, but the 
darkness which he encountered was so impen- 
etrable that he would have instantly retreated 
had he not remembered the box of matches 
which kept guard with an old pipe in a certain 
pocket of his red flannel shirt. Taking out 
this box, he struck a match and, as soon as 
the first dazzling flash was over, perceived that 
he was in a small but well furnished room, 
stocked with provisions and containing many 
articles of domestic use. This so surprised 
him that he withdrew in some haste, though 
he would dearly have liked to have made 
some investigation into the old chest of 
drawers he saw there, and had one peep at 
least into the odd, long box which took up so 
much of the darkened space into which he had 
intruded. 

The dog was waiting for him below and at 


28 


Doctor Izard. 


his reappearance leaped and bounded with de- 
light, and then lay down on the floor of the 
cave with such an inviting wriggle of the tail 
that the man understood him at last. It was a 
lodging that the dog offered him, a lodging 
which had been occupied by a former master, 
and which the faithful creature still watched 
over and hungered in, as his appearance amply 
showed. The man, to whom a. human being 
might have appealed in vain, was grimly 
touched by this benevolent action on the part 
of a dog, and stooping quickly, he gave him 
a short caress, after which he rose and stood 
hesitating for a moment, casting short glances 
behind him. 

But the temptation, if it was such, to remain, 
did not hold him long, for presently he mo- 
tioned to the dog to follow him, and issuing 
from the cave, began his weary tramp toward 
the town. The dog, with fallen tail and droop- 
ing head, trotted slowly after him. And this 
was the first adventure which met this man in 
the little town of Hamilton. 


I 


III. 

THE YOUNG HEIRESS. 

T hat night five men sat on the porch of 
the one tavern in Hamilton. Of these, 
one was the landlord, a spare, caustic New 
Englander who understood his business and 
left it to his wife to do the agreeable. Of the 
remaining four, two were the inevitable 
loungers to be found around all such places at 
nightfall, and the other two, wayfarers who 
had taken up lodgings for the night. The 
dog lying contentedly at the feet of one of 
these latter tells us who he was. 

The talk was on local subjects and included 
more or less gossip. Who had started it ? 
No one knew ; but the least interested person 
in the group was apparently the man with the 
dog. He sat and smoked, because it was the 
hour for sitting and smoking, but he neither 

29 


30 


Doctor Izard, 


talked nor listened, — that is, to all appearance 
— and when he laughed, as he occasionally did, 
it was more at some unexpected antic on the 
part of the dog than at anything which was 
said in his hearing. But he was old and no- 
body wondered. 

The last subject under discussion was the 
engagement of a certain young lady to a New 
York medical student. '‘Which means, I take 
it, that Dr. Izard will not continue to have 
full swing here,” observed one of the stragglers. 
“ Folks say as how her people won’t hear of 
her leaving home. So he ’ll have to come to 
Hamilton.” 

" I sha’n’t lend him my old body to experi- 
ment on, if he does,” spoke up the surly land- 
lord. " Dr. Izard is good enough for me.” 

“ And for me. But the women folks want a 
change, they say. The doctor is so everlasting 
queer ; and then he ’s away so much.” 

“ That ’s because he is so skilful that even 
the big bugs in Boston and New York too, I 
hear, want his opinion on their cases. He’s 
not to blame for that. Great honor, I say, not 
only to him but to all the town.” 


The Afau with the Dog, 31 

“ Great honor, no doubt, but mighty incon- 
venient. Why, when my wife’s sister was took 
the other night I run all the way from my 
house to the doctor’s only to find the door 
closed and that everlasting placard up at the 
side : * Gone out of town.’ I say it ’s a shame, 
I do, and no other doctor to be found within 
five miles.” 

“You ought to live in Boston. There they 
have doctors enough.” 

“ Yet they send for ours.” 

“ Do you know,” another voice spoke up, 
“ that I had rather go sick till morning, or 
have one of my folk’s sick, than take that road 
up by the churchyard after ten o’clock at night. 
I think it ’s the gloomiest, most God-forsaken 
spot I ever struck in all my life. To think of 
a doctor living next door to a graveyard. It ’s 
a trifle too suggestive, I say.” 

“ I would n’t care about that if he was n’t 
so like a graveyard himself. I declare his look 
is like a hollow vault. If he was n’t so smart 
I ’d ’a sent for the Wells doctor long ago. I 
hate long white faces, myself, no matter how 
handsome they are, and when he touches me 


32 


Doctor Izard, 


with that slender cold hand of his, the shivers 
go all over me so that he thinks I am struck 
with a chill. And so I am, but not with a 
natural one, I vow. If we lived in the olden 
times and such a man dared come around the 
death-beds of honest people such as live in this 
town, he ’d have been burnt as a \vizard.” 

“ Come, I won’t hear such talk about a 
neighbor, let alone a man who has more than 
once saved the lives of all of us. He s queer ; 
but who is n’t queer ? He lives alone, and 
cooks and sleeps and doctors all in one room, 
like the miser he undoubtedly is, and won’t 
have anything to do with chick or child or man 
or woman who is not sick, unless you except 
the village’s protegee^ Polly Earle, whom every- 
body notices and does for. But all this does 
not make him wicked or dangerous or uncanny 
even. That is, to those who used to know 
him when he was young.” 

“ And did you ? ” 

“ Wa’al, I guess I did, and a handsomer 
man never walked Boston streets, let alone the 
lanes of this poor village. They used to say 
in those days that he thought of marrying, but 


33 


The Man with the Dog, 

he changed his mind for some reason, and 
afterward grew into the kind of man you see. 
Good cause, I Ve no doubt, for it. Men like 
him don’t shut themselves up in a cage for 
nothing:.” 

“But ” 

“ Don’t let us talk any more about the 
doctor,” cried the lodger who did not have a 
dog. “ You spoke of a little girl whom every- 
body does for. Why is that ? The topic 
ought to be interesting.” 

The landlord, who had talked more than his 
wont, frowned and filled his pipe, which had 
gone out. “ Ask them fellers,” he growled ; 
“or get my wife into a corner and ask her. 
She likes to spin long stories ; I don’t.” 

“ Oh, I don’t care about asking anybody,” 
mumbled the stranger, who was a sallow-faced 
drummer with a weak eye and a sensual mouth. 
“ I only thought ” 

“ She is n’t for any such as you, if that ’s 
what you mean,” volunteered the straggler, 
taking up the burden of the talk. “ She has 
been looked after by the village because her 
case was a hard one. She was an only child. 


34 


Doctor Izard, 


and when she was but four her mother died, 
after a long and curious illness which no 
one understood, and three days after, her 
father — ” The dog yelped. As no one 
was near him but his master, he must have 
been hurt by that master, but how, it was 
impossible to understand, for neither had 
appeared to move. 

“Well, well,” cried the sallow young man, 
“ her father ” 

“ Disappeared. He was last seen at his 
wife’s funeral ; the next day he was not to be 
found anywhere. That was fourteen years 
ago, and we know no more now than then 
what became of him.” 

“ And the child ? ” 

“ Was left without a soul to look after it. 
But the whole village has taken her in charge 
and she has never suffered. She has even 
been educated, — some say by Dr. Izard, but 
for this I won’t vouch, for he is a perfect 
miser in his way of living, and I don’t think 
he would trouble himself to help anybody, 
even a poor motherless child.” 

“Well, if he has spent a penny for her in 


The Man with the Dog, 


35 


the past, I don’t think he will be called upon 
to spend any in the future. I heard yester- 
day that she has come into a pretty property, 
and that, too, in a very suspicious way.” 

“ What ’s that ? You have ? Why did n’t 
you tell us so before ? When a man has news, 
I say he ought to impart it, and that without 
any ifs and ands.” 

“Well, I thought it would keep,” drawled 
.the speaker, drawing back with an air of 
importance as all the habitues of the place 
pressed upon him, and even Mrs. Husted, the 
landlady, stepped out of her sitting-room to 
listen. 

“ Wa’al, it won’t,” snarled the landlord. 
“ News, like baked potatoes, must be eaten 
hot. Where did you hear this about Polly 
Earle, and what do you mean by suspicious ? ” 

“ I mean that this money, and they do say 
it ’s a pretty sum, came to her by will, and 
that the man who left it was a perfect stranger 
to her, someone she never heard of before, of 
that I ’ll be bound. He said in his will that 
he left all this money in payment of an old 
debt to her father, but that ’s all bosh. 


36 


Doctor hard. 


Ephraim Earle got all the money that was 
owing to him two weeks before he vanished 
out of this town, and I say ” 

''No matter what you say,” broke in the 
crabbed landlord. " She ’s had money left 
her, and now she ’ll get a good husband, and 
make a show in the village. I ’m glad on it, 
for one. She ’s sung and danced and made 
merry on nothing long enough. Let her try 
a little responsibility now, and return some of 
the favors, she has received.” 

" Did you hear how much money it was ? ” 
timidly asked an old man who had just joined 
the group. 

"It was just the same amount as was paid 
Ephraim Earle for his invention a few days 
before we saw the last of him.” 

" Lord-a-mercy ! ” 

" And which ” 

" Now this is too interesting for anything,” 
exclaimed a female voice from a window over- 
head. " Twenty thousand dollars, really ? 
What a romance. I must run and see Polly 
this minute.” 

"Stop her!” came in gutteral command 
from the landlord to his wife. 


37 


The Man with the Dog. 

“ And why should I stop her ? ” asked that 
good woman, with a jolly roll of her head. 
“ Instead of stopping her, I think I will go 
with her. But do let us hear more about it 
first. What was the name of the man who 
left her this splendid fortune ?” 

“ Abram Hazlitt. Somebody who lived out 
west.” 

From the looks that flew from one to the 
other and from the doubtful shakes of the 
head visible on every side, this was, as the 
speaker had declared, an utterly unknown 
name. The interest became intense. 

“I always thought there was something- 
wrong about Ephraim’s disappearance. No 
man as good as he would have left a child like 
that of his own free will.” 

“ What ! do you think this man Hazlitt had 
anything to do ” 

“ Hush, hush.” 

The monition came from more than one 
pair of lips ; and even the man with the dog 
looked up. A young lady was coming down 
the street. 

“ There she is now.” 


38 


Doctor Izard. 


“ She ’s coming here.” 

“ No ; more likely she ’s on her way to tell 
the doctor of her good luck.” 

Look, she has the same old smile.” 

“ And the same dress.” 

“ Wa’al she ’s pretty, anyhow.” 

“ And such a sunbeam ! ” 

Yelp ! went the dog again. His master had 
trod on his tail for the second time. Mean- 
while the cause of all this excitement had 
reached the walk in front of the house. Though 
she was tripping along in a merry fashion which 
was all her own, she stopped as she met Mrs. 
Husted’s eye, and, calling her down, whispered 
something in her ear. Then with a backward 
nod the young girl passed on, and everyone 
drew a long breath. There was something so 
satisfactory to them all in her ingenuous 
manner and simple expression of youthful 
delight. f ^ 

She was a slight girl, and to those who had 
seen her every day for the last dozen years she 
was simply prettier than usual, but to the two 
or three strangers observing her she was a 
vision of madcap beauty that for the moment 


39 


The Man with the Dog, 

made every other woman previously seen for- 
gotten. Her face, which was heart-shaped and 
fresh as a newly-opened rose, was flushed with 
laughter, and the dimples which came and 
went with every breath so distracted the eye 
that it was not till she had turned her lovely 
countenance aside that one remembered the 
violet hues in her heavily-lashed eyes and the 
hints of feeling which emanated from them. 
That, with all the dignities of her new-born 
heirship upon her, she swung a white sunbon- 
net on her delicate forefinger was characteristic 
of the girl. The hair thus revealed to sight 
was of a glistening chestnut, whose somewhat 
rumpled curls were deliciously in keeping with 
the saucy poise of the unquiet head. Alto- 
gether a decided gleam of sunshine, made all 
the more conspicuously bright from the hints 
just given of the tragic history of her parents 
and the shadows surrounding the very gift 
which had called up all this pleasure into her 
face. 

“ What did she say ? ” whispered more than 
one voice as the landlady came slowly back. 

She invited me to visit her, and hinted that 


40 


Doctor Izard, 


she had something to tell me/' was the some- 
what important reply. 

“ And when are you going ? ” asked one more 
eager than the rest. 

“ I may go back with her when she returns 
from Dr. Izard’s," was the cool and consequen- 
tial response. Evidently the landlady had 
been raised in her own estimation by the notice 
given her by this former little waif. 

“ I wonder," someone now ventured, “ if 
she is going to buy the big house over the 
doctor’s office. I noticed that the windows 
were open to-day." 

“ Pshaw, and her father’s house lying idle ?" 

“ Her father’s house ! Good gracious, would 
you have the child go there?” 

“ You make the chills run over me." 

“ Nobody would go into that house with her. 
It has n’t been opened in fourteen years." 

“ The more shame," growled the landlord. 

She ’ll never have anything to do with that. 
I Ve seen her run by it myself, as if the very 
shadow it cast was terrifying to her." 

“ Yet folks thought it was a cozy home when 
Ephraim took his young wife there. I remem- 


41 


The Man with the Dog, 

ber, myself, the brass andirons in the parlor 
and the long row of books in the big hall up- 
stairs. To think that those books have never 
been opened these fourteen years, nor the floors 
trod on, nor the curtains drawn back ! I declare, 
it ’s the most creepy thing of the whole affair.” 

“ And how do you know that the floor 
has n’t been walked on, nor the curtains 
drawn, since we took the child out from her 
desolate corner in the old bed-room upstairs ? ” 
suggested another voice in an odd, mysterious 
tone. 

“ Because the doors were locked and the 
keys put where no one in the town could get 
at ’em. We thought it best ; there was death 
on the walls everywhere, and the child had no 
money to be brought up in any such a grand 
way as that.” 

“ Folks as I mean don’t need keys,” mur- 
mured the other under his breath. But the 
suggestion, if it were such, was immediately 
laughed down. 

“ You ’re a fool, Jacob ; we ’re in the nine- 
teenth century now, the era of electric lights 
and trolley cars.” 


42 


Doctor Izard, 


“I know; I know; but I Ve seen more 
than once on a dark night the shifting of 
a light behind those drawn curtains, and 
once ” 

But the laughter was against him and he de- 
sisted, and another man spoke up — the lodger 
with the sallow face : “ Why did n’t they sell 
the old place if the child was left as poor as 
you say ? ” 

“ Why, man, its owner might be living. 
Ephraim Earle only disappeared, you know, 
and might have returned any day. Leastwise 
that is what we thought then. Now, we no 
longer expect it. I wonder who ’ll act as her 
guardian.” 

“ She ’s of age ; she don’t need no guar- 
dian.” 

“Well, it ’s a precious mystery, the whole 
thing. I wonder if the police won’t see some- 
thing in it ? ” 

“ Bah, police ! They had the chance at the 
thing fourteen years ago. And what did they 
do with it? Nothing.” 

“ But now there ’s a clue. This man Hazlitt 
knew what became of Ephraim Earle, or why 


The Man with the Dog. 43 

did he leave that very same amount to his 
daughter ?” 

“ Lor’ knows. She ’s a taking minx and 
perhaps ” * 

“ Well, perhaps ” 

“ Hazlitt was n’t his name, don’t you see ?” 

This new theory started fresh talk and much 
excited reasoning, but as it was of the most 
ignorant sort, it is scarcely worth our while to 
record it. Meanwhile the twilight gave way 
to darkness and Polly Earle failed to reappear. 
When it was quite dark, the stragglers separ- 
ated, and then it was seen that the man with 
the dog had fallen asleep in his chair. 

Someone strove to wake him. 

Come, come, friend,” said he ; “you ’ll be 
getting the rheumatiz if you don’t look out. 
This is n’t the right kind of air to sleep in.” 

The old wayfarer yawned, opened his 
strange, uneasy eyes, and hobbling to his feet 
looked lazily up and down the street. 

“ What time is it ?” he asked. 

“ Nine o’clock,” shouted someone. 

“ Give me a drink, then, and I and my dog 
will take a walk.” And he drew out a worn 


44 


Docto7^ Izard. 


wallet, from which he drew a dime, which he 
handed in through the open window to the 
now busy landlord. 

“ Hot,” he croaked, “ I Ve got chilly ’sitting 
out here in the dew.” 

The glass was handed him, and he drank it 
off with the ease of an accustomed hand. 

I ’ll be back before you lock up,” said he, 
and stepped down into the street, followed by 
the dog. 

“ Seems to me I ’ve seen that dog before,” 
remarked someone. 

“Why, don’t you know him? That ’sold 
Piper, the dead hermit’s dog. I wonder how 
this fellow got hold of him.” 


DR. IZARD. 


T he tramp, who was, as you have seen, 
not without some small means to make 
himself respected, paused for a moment in 
front of the tavern before deciding what direc- 
tion he would take. Then he went east, or, to 
make matters clearer to my reader, followed 
the direction young Polly Earle had taken an 
hour or so before. 

Being bent and old he walked slowly, but as 
the tavern from which he had emerged was 
near the end of the street, it was not long 
before he came upon the big church at the 
corner, beyond which was the open country 
and circling highroad. 

“ They spoke of a graveyard,” murmured 
he, pausing and gazing about him with eyes 
which seemed to have lost none of their pene- 


46 


Doctor Izard. 


tration, however bent his figure or aged his 
face. “ Ah ! I think I see it ! ” And he 
rambled on in the darkness till he came to a 
picket fence. But this fence enclosed a dwell- 
ing-house, whose large and imposing bulk rose 
in deepest shadow beyond him, and he had to 
walk several rods farther before he came to 
the spot of glimmering headstones and droop- 
ing willows. A faint moon lent a ghostly light 
to the place, and as he stopped and bent his 
head over the intervening wall, weird glimpses 
were given him of snowy shafts and rounded 
hillocks, which may have accounted for the 
length of time he clung there without move- 
ment or sound. 

But finally the dog whining at his heels, or 
the gleam of a light shining in the distance, 
recalled him to himself, and he moved, taking 
the direction of that light, though it led him 
over the cemetery wall and across such of the 
graves as lay along the border of the yard 
adjoining the large house of which I have pre- 
viously spoken. The dog, who had not left 
him a moment since he joined him at the cave, 
shrank as he climbed the wall, and the old 


47 


The Man with the Do(r* 

o 

man took his course alone, treading as softly 
as he could, but yet making some noise as a 
broken twig snapped under his foot or he 
pressed down some tiny aspiring bush in his 
rude advance. 

He was making for the light which shone 
from the window near the ground in the huge 
side of the great and otherwise unilluminated 
house he had passed a few minutes before. 
He had expected to be met by a fence like the 
one in front, but to his surprise he soon saw 
that the graveyard pressed close up to the 
house, and that there was a monument not ten 
yards from the very window he was approach- 
ing. He had paused at this monument, and 
was vainly trying to read the inscription which 
was cut deeply into the side turned toward the 
moon, when he heard a sudden sound, and, 
looking toward the house, saw that a door 
had opened in the blank side of Jthe wall, and 
that the light had shifted from the window to 
this open square, where it was held high above 
the head of a remarkable looking man who 
was looking directly his way. 

Convinced that this was Dr. Izard, he held 


48 


Doctor Izard, 


his breath, and slunk as much into the shadow 
of the shaft as possible. Meanwhile he stared 
at the picture presented to his notice, and 
noted every outline of the noble head and 
small but finely proportioned form, that filled 
the illuminated gap before him. The face he 
could not see, but the attitude was eloquent, 
and conveyed so vividly an expression of 
strained listening and agitated doubt, that this 
by no means careless observer felt that his step 
had been heard, and that something more than 
common curiosity had drawn the doctor to the 
spot. 

A sudden sense of his position among the 
graves, or the chill imparted by his close con- 
tact with the stone shaft against which he had 
flung himself, made the aged wanderer shiver, 
but his emotion, however occasioned, did not 
last long, for with a sigh that could be plainly 
heard across the short space. Dr. Izard with- 
drew his head and closed the door, leaving 
nothing to be seen in the dim blackness of the 
houseside but the one square of light which 
had previously attracted the stranger’s atten- 
tion. 


49 


The Man with the Dog, 

With careful step and bated breath, the lat- 
ter left the tomb by which he had sought 
refuge, and advanced to this same wall, along 
which he crept till he reached this uncurtained 
window. A glimpse of the interior was what 
he wanted, but, as he stopped to listen, he 
found that he was likely to obtain more than 
this, for plainly to be heard in the almost 
death-like quiet, came the sound of two voices 
conversing, and he knew, perhaps by instinct, 
perhaps by ready reasoning, that they were 
the voices of the doctor and the pretty new 
heiress, Polly Earle. 

To listen might have been a temptation to 
any man, but to this one it was almost a neces- 
sity. His first desire, however, was to see 
what was before him, and so, with more skill 
than one would expect, he bent a branch of 
the vine swaying about him, and, from behind 
its cover, peered into the shining panes that 
opened so invitingly beside him. 

The first thing he saw was the room with 
its shelves upon shelves of books, piled high to 
the ceiling. As it answered the triple purpose 
of doctor s office, student’s study, and a mis- 


50 


Doctor Izard. 


anthrope’s cell, it naturally presented an 
anomalous appearance, which was anything 
but attractive at first sight. Afterward, cer- 
tain details stood out, and it became apparent 
that those curious dangling things which dis- 
figured the upper portion of the room belonged 
entirely to the medical side of the occupant’s 
calling, while the mixture of articles on the 
walls, some beautiful, but many of them gro- 
tesque if not repellant, bespoke the man of 
taste whose nature has been warped by soli- 
tude. A large door painted green filled up a 
considerable space of the wall on the left, but 
judging from the two heavy bars padlocked 
across it, it no longer served as a means of 
communication with the other parts of the 
house. On the contrary it had been fitted from 
top to bottom with shelves, upon which were 
ranged a doctor’s usual collection of phials, 
boxes, and surgical appliances, with here and 
there a Chinese image or an Indian god. A 
rude settle showed where he slept at night, and 
on the table in the middle of the room, a most 
incongruous litter of books, trinkets, medi- 
cines, clothing, sewing materials, and chemical 


The Man with the Dog. 5 1 

apparatus proclaimed the fact, well known in 
the village, that no woman ever set foot in the 
place, save such as came for medical advice or 
on some such errand as had drawn hither the 
pretty Polly. 

At the table and in full view of the peering 
intruder sat the genius of the place. Dr. Izard. 
His. back was to the window and he was look- 
ing up at Polly, who stood near, twirling as 
usual her sunbonnet round her dainty forefinger. 
It was his profile, therefore, which the curious 
wayfarer saw, but this profile was so fine and 
yet so characteristic that it immediately im- 
printed itself upon the memory like a silhouette 
and the observer felt that he had known it 
always. Yet it was not till one had been ac- 
quainted with the doctor long that all the 
traits of his extraordinary countenance became 
apparent. Its intelligence, its sadness, its re- 
serve and the beauty which gave to all these 
qualities a strange charm which was rather awe- 
inspiring than pleasurable, struck the mind at 
once, but it was not till after months of inter- 
course that one saw that the spell he invari- 
ably created about him was not due to these 


52 


Doctor Izard. 


obvious qualities but to something more subtle 
and enigmatic, something which flashed out in 
his face at odd times or fell from his voice 
under the strain of some unusual emotion, 
which while it neither satisfied the eye nor the 
ear, created such a halo of individuality about 
the man that dread became terror or admira- 
tion became worship according to the mental 
bias of the person observant of him. 

In age he was nearer fifty than forty, and in 
color dark rather than light. But no one ever 
spoke of him as young or old, light or dark. 
He was simply Dr. Izard, the pride and the 
dread of the village, the central point of its in- 
tellectual life, on whose eccentricities judgment 
was suspended because through him fame had 
come to the village and its humble name been 
carried far and wide. 

Polly, who feared nobody, but who had for 
this man, as her rather unwilling benefactor, a 
wholesome respect, was looking down when 
the stranger first saw her. The smile which 
was never long absent from her lips lingered 
yet in the depths of the dimple that was turned 
toward the doctor, but the rest of her face 


53 


The Man with the Dog. 

showed emotion and a hint of seriousness which 
was by no means unbecoming to her poetic 
features. 

‘‘You are very good,” she was saying. “ I 
have often wondered why you were so good to 
such a little flyaway as I am. But I shall 
surely remember all you have said and follow 
your advice as nearly as possible.’ 

There was unexpected coldness in the doc- 
tor’s reply : 

“ I have advised nothing but what any friend 
of yours must subscribe to. The woman with 
whom you are staying is a good woman, but 
the home she can give you is no longer suita- 
ble for a girl who has come, as you say you 
have, into possession of considerable property. 
You must find another; and since the house 
over our heads is a good one, I have ventured 
to offer it to you for a sum which your 
man of business certainly will not regard as 
high, considering its advantages of size and 
location.” 

“ By location do you mean its close proxim- 
ity to the graveyard ? ” she inquired, with a 
naive inclination of her coquettish head. “ I 


54 


Doctor Izard, 


should say, myself, though I never fear any- 
thing, that its location is against it.” 

His eye, which had wandered from hers, 
came back with a stern intentness. 

“ Since I have lived here for twenty years 
with no other outlook than the graves you 
see, I cannot be said to be a good judge of 
the matter. To me the spot has become a 
necessity, and if you should make the arrange- 
ment I suggest, it must be with the under- 
standing that this room is to be reserved for 
my use as long as I live, for I could never 
draw a free breath elsewhere.” 

“ Nor would anyone wish you to,” said she. 

This solitary room, with its dangling skulls 
and queer old images, its secrecy and dark- 
ness, and the graves pressing up almost to 
your window, seems a part of Dr. Izard. I 
could not imagine you in a trim office with a 
gig at the door and a man to drive it. No, it 
would rob us of half our faith in you, to see 
you enjoying life like other folks. You 
must stay here if only because my mother, 
lying over there in her solitary grave, would 
be lonely were your face to fail to appear 


The Man with the Dog, 55 

every night and morning in your open door- 
way.” 

Her hand, which had paused in its restless 
action, pointed over her shoulder to the silent 
yard without. The physician’s eye followed 
it, and the words of reproof died upon his 
tongue. 

“You think me frivolous,” she cried. 
“Well, so I am, at times. you make me 

think ; and if this sudden accession to fortune 
fills me with excitement and delight, the sight 
of you sitting here, and the nearness of my 
mother’s tomb, gives me some sober thoughts 
too, and — and — Dr. Izard, will you tell me 
one thing ? Why do people stare when they 
hear the exact amount of the money left me ? 
It is not because it is so large ; for some say it 
is anything but a large fortune. Is it — ” she 
hesitated a little, probably because it was 
always hard to talk to Dr. Izard — “ for the 
reason that it is so near the sum my father 
was said to have carried away with him, when 
he left me so suddenly ? ” 

The wind was fluttering the vines, and the 
doctor turned his head to look that way. 


56 


Doctor Izard, 


When he glanced back he answered quietly, 
but with no irritation in his voice : 

It is hard to tell what causes the stare of 
ignorant people. What was the amount which 
has been left you ? I do not think you have 
mentioned the exact figure.” 

“ Twenty thousand dollars,” she whispered. 

Is n’t it splendid, — a lordly fortune, for such 
a poor girl as I am ? ” 

“Yes,” he acquiesced, “yes.” But he 
seemed struck just as others had been who 
heard it. 

“ And was not that just what was paid papa 
by the French government just before mamma 
died ? ” 

“ I have heard it so said,” was the short re- 
ply. 

“ And don’t you know?” she asked. 

The pout on her lips bespoke the spoiled 
child, but her little hands were trembling, and 
he seemed to see only that. 

“ Polly,” — he spoke harshly, for he did not 
like young girls, or women at all for that mat- 
ter, — “ I knew many things which I have let 
slip from my memory. When your father and 


The Man with the Dog. 57 

I were young we were more or less intimate, 
being both of us students and ambitious of do- 
ing something worth while in this world. But 
after his disappearance and the unfortunate 
surmises to which it gave rise, I made a busi- 
ness of forgetting any confidential communica- 
tions with which he may have entrusted me, 
and I advise you not to stir up old griefs by 
driving me to recall them now.” 

“ But you were my mother’s physician and 
saw my father just before he went away.” 

Yes.” 

“ And did he have twenty thousand dollars 
in money ? They say so, but it seems incredi- 
ble to me, who only remember my father ^s 
looking worried and poor.” 

“ Twenty thousand dollars was paid him two 
weeks before your mother died.” 

“ And he carried all that away with him and 
never left a dollar to his little motherless 
child ? Oh, I know that some people say he 
was foully dealt with and that it was not of his 
own free will that he left me to the mercies of 
the town. But I never believed that. I have 
always thought of him as alive, and many is 


58 


Doctor hard, . 


the night I have waked up crying — Oh, I can 
cry at night and in the darkness, if I do laugh 
all day when the sun shines — because I dreamt 
he was enjoying himself in foreign lands while 
I — she stopped, looking inquiringly at Dr. 
Izard, and he, startled, looked inquiringly at 
her, then for the second time he rose up, and 
taking the light, went out to search up and 
down the ghostly waste before him, for what 
he rather felt than knew was near. 

‘‘ Oh, how late it is getting ! ” cried the little 
maiden, peering over his shoulder. “ Did you 
think you heard someone sigh ? I thought I 
did, but who would come creeping up to this 
spot ? Do you know,” she exclaimed, drawing 
him in just as he was about to turn his atten- 
tion to the side of the house against which 
they stood, that I believe it ’s that horrid 
green door which gives people the shivers 
when they come here. Why is it there and 
what is on the other side of it that you bar it 
up like that ? ” 

The doctor, lifting his abstracted gaze, 
stared at the door for a moment, then turned 
moodily away. “It was the old way of going 


The Man with the Dog. 


59 


upstairs,” he remarked. “ Why should n’t I 
bar it, since I have no further use for the rest 
of the house ? ” 

“ But its color,” she persisted ; “why do you 
not paint it white ? ” 

“ When I fit up my den for a bride, then I 
will,” he retorted, and the audacious little 
thing became dumb on this subject, though 
she showed no inclination for dropping the 
other. 

“ Dear Dr. Izard,” she pursued, “ I know I 
ought to be going home, but I have something 
more to ask, and it is n’t always that you allow 
me to speak to you. Our house — you know 
what I mean, my father's and mother’s house, 
— is it really haunted, and is that why it is shut 
up, even from me ? ” 

“ Do you want to go into it, Polly ? ” 

“ No — and yet I have sometimes thought I 
should like to. It must be full of relics of my 
parents, and if it has not been disturbed since 
my father went away, why, I might almost see 
the prints of his feet on the floors, and the 
pressure of his form in the old lounges and 
chairs.” 


6o 


Doctor Izard, 


“You are too imaginative!” cried the 
doctor. “ They will have to marry you to 
some practical man.” 

She flushed, drew back and seemed on the 
point of uttering some violent protest or in- 
dignant reproach, but instead of that she re- 
turned to the original topic. 

“ I should like to hear from your lips, which 
never exaggerate or add the least bit of ro- 
mance to anything you say, just the story of 
my father’s departure and that sudden shutting 
up of the house. I think I ought to know 
now that I am a grown woman and have 
money of my own.” 

“ Will you go, after I have told you all that 
there is to know?” he asked, with just a touch 
of impatience in his naturally severe tone. 

“Yes,” she laughed, irresistibly moved by 
his appearance of ill-nature. “ I won’t stay 
one minute longer than you wish me to. 
Only,” she added, with the sobriety more in 
accordance with the theme they were discuss- 
ing, “ do make the whole thing clear to me. 
I have heard so many stories and all of them 
so queer.” 


The Man with the Dog. 6i 

He frowned, and his face underwent an in- 
describable change. 

“ You are a silly slip of a girl and I have a 
mind to turn you out of the house at once. 
But,” and his eyes wandered away to his 
books, “ your curiosity is legitimate and shall 
be satisfied. Only not here,” he suddenly 
cried, I will tell you as we walk toward your 
home.” 

“Or in the graveyard outside,” she mur- 
mured. “ I am not afraid of the place with 
you near me. Indeed, I think I should like 
to hear my mother’s story, standing by her 
tomb.” 

“ You would ! ” The doctor, astonished, agi- 
tated almost, by this untoward sentiment uttered 
by lips he had only seen parted in laughter, 
rose, and leaning on the table looked over it 
at her, with eyes whose effect only was visible 
to the straining pair without. “Well, you 
shall have your wish. I will tell you her 
story, that is, as much as I know of it, stand- 
ing by her grave without.” And with a grim 
smile, he took up his hat and stepped quickly 
before her toward the door. She followed 


62 


Doctor Izard, 


him, with an eager gesture, and in a minute 
their two shadows could be dimly seen in the 
moonlight falling over the face of that very 
shaft behind which the stranger had taken 
refuge an hour or so before. The vines that 
swayed about the window ceased their restless 
rustling and seemed to cling with heavier 
shadow than usual to the dismal wall. 

“Your father,” said the doctor, “ was a man 
of one idea, but that idea was a valuable one 
and it paid its projector well. The invention 
which he conceived, perfected, and made prac- 
tical, was an important one, suited to large 
governmental undertakings and meeting the 
wants of France especially. It was bought, as 
I have said, from your father for the sum of 
twenty thousand dollars. But this good for- 
tune, while deserved, had not come early, and 
your mother, who had been overburdened in 
her youth, was on her deathbed when the 
favorable news came. It comforted her, but 
it almost maddened your father, if I may judge 
from the frenzied expressions he used in my 
hearing. He did not touch the money, and 
when she died he locked himself up in a room, 


63 


The Man with the Dog, 

from which he only emerged to attend her 
funeral. This I tell you that you may see 
that his paternal instinct was not as great as 
his conjugal one, or he would not have forgot- 
ten you in his grief. Did you speak ?” 

“ No, no ; but it is gloomy here, after all ; 
let us go on into the highway.” 

But the man clinging to the wall was not 
forced to move. The doctor did not heed her 
entreaty, or if he did he ignored it, for his 
voice went coldly and impassively on: “The 
night after your mother was buried, your 
father was seen looking from one of the win- 
dows of his house. The next morning he was 
missing. That is all I can tell you, Polly. 
No one knows any more than that.” 

“ But was n’t there somebody in the house 
besides himself ? Where was I ? ” 

“ Oh, you were there, and an old woman who 
had been looking after you in your mother’s 
illness. But you were too young to realize 
anything, and the woman — she has since died 
— had nothing to say, but that she was sure 
she heard your father go out.” 

“ And the money ? ” 


64 


Doctor Izard, 


“ Went with him.” 

“ Oh, I have heard it all before,” came after 
a moment’s silence, in sharp and plaintive 
tones. “But I was in hopes you could tell 
me something different, something new. Did 
they look for my father as I would have done 
had I been old enough to understand ?” 

“ I headed the search myself, Polly ; and 
later the,police from Boston came down, and 
went through the town thoroughly. But they 
met with no results.” 

“ And now a stranger leaves me twenty 
thousand dollars ! Dr. Izard, I should like to 
know something about that stranger. He 
died in the Chicago Hospital, I am told.” 

“ I will make inquiries.” 

“ If — if he had anything to do with my 
father’s disappearance ” 

“You will never know it; the man is 
dead.” 

A silence followed these few words, during 
which the agitated breathing of the young girl 
could be heard. Then her quivering voice 
rose in the impatient cry : “Yes, yes; but it 
would be such a relief to know the truth. As 


The Man with the Dog, 65 

it is, I am always thinking that each stranger 
I see coming into town is he. Not that 
it makes me timid or melancholy ; nothing 
could do that, I think ; but still I ’m not 
quite happy, nor can this money make me 
so while any doubts remain as to my father s 
fate.” 

“I cannot help you,” the doctor declared. 
“ For fourteen years you have borne your 
burden, little one, and time should have taught 
you patience. If I were in a position like 
yours I would not allow old griefs to fret me. 
I should consider that a man who had been 
missing most of my lifetime was either dead or 
so indifferent that I ran but little chance of 
seeing him again. I myself do not think there 
is the least likelihood of your ever doing so. 
Why then not be happy ? ” 

“ Well, I will,” she sighed. “ I ’m sure it ’s 
not my nature to be otherwise. But some- 
thing either in these dismal trees, or in your- 
self or in myself makes me almost gloomy to- 
night. I feel as if a cloud hung over me. 
Am I very foolish, doctor, and will you be 

taking me back to the office to give me a dose 
5 


66 


Doctor hard. 


of some bitter, black stuff to drive away the 
horrors ? I had rather you would give me a 
fatherly word. I ’m so alone in the world, for 
all my friends.” 

He may have answered this appeal by some 
touch or sympathetic move, but if he did, the 
listener was not near enough to catch it. 
There was a rustling where they stood and in 
another instant the bare head of the young 
girl was visible again in the moonlight. 

“ I think I will be going home,” said she, 
and turned towards the gateway. The doctor 
followed her and together they left the ceme- 
tery and entered the high-road. When the 
sound of their voices had died away in the dis- 
tance, a deep and heavy shadow separated 
itself from the side of the house near the win- 
dow and resolving itself again into the image 
of the man through whose ears we have lis- 
tened to the broken dialogue we have endeav- 
ored to transcribe, took up its stand before the 
still lighted window and for several minutes 
studied the peculiar interior most diligently. 
Then it drew off, and sliding down the path 
which followed the side of the house, emerged 


The Man with the Dog. 67 

upon the road and took its own course to the 
village. 

Something which he did not see and some- 
thing which he did not hear, took place at the 
other end of the town before a cheerfully 
lighted mansion. Dr. Izard and Polly had 
traversed the length of the street, and had 
nearly reached the cottage in which she was at 
present living, when the former felt the little 
hand now thrust confidingly into his arm, flutter 
and shift a trifle. As the girl had regained her 
spirits and was now chatting in quite a merry 
way upon indifferent topics, he looked up to 
see what it was that had affected her, and saw 
nothing save the lights of the Unwin place and 
a figure which must have been that of young 
Unwin sitting on the shadowy veranda. As 
he had reasons of his own for not liking to pass 
this house, he stopped and glanced at the 
young girl inquiringly. She had ceased speak- 
ing and her head was hanging so low that the 
curls dropped against her cheek, hiding her 
eyes and the expression of her mouth. 

“I think,” she whispered, “if you don’t 
mind, that I will walk on the other side of you. 


68 


Doctor Izard, 


It is very late for me to be out, even with you, 
and Clarke ” 

The doctor, drawing in his breath, turned 
his full face on her and stood so long gazing 
into her drooping countenance that she felt 
frightened and attempted to move on. In- 
stantly he responded to her wish and they 
passed the house with quick and agitated steps, 
but when the shadows of the next block had 
absorbed them, they both paused as it were 
simultaneously, and the doctor said with some- 
thing more than his usual feeling in his thin, 
fine voice, “Do you care for Clarke Unwin, 
little one ? ” 

Her answer struck him. 

“Do I care for breath, for life? He has 
been both to me ever since I could remember 
anything. And now he cares for me.” 

The doctor, lost in some overwhelming 
dream or thought, did not answer her for sev- 
eral minutes. Then he suddenly lifted her 
face by its dainty chin, and in a deep, con- 
trolled tone, totally different from the one he 
had used a short time before, he solemnly re- 
marked : 


69 


The Man with the Dog. 

For fourteen years I have taken an interest 
in you and done for you what I have done for 
nobody else in the town. I hope that my care 
has made a good girl of you, and that under 
all your fanciful ways and merry antics there 
hides a true woman’s heart.” 

“ I don’t know,” she whispered. “ I know 
that I would rather give up my fortune than 
one little memory connected with these last 
three weeks.” 

“And he — he loves you ? You are sure of 
it, little one ? ” 

The lift of her head was eloquent ; the doc- 
tor wished he could see her face, but the dark- 
ness was too thick for that. 

“ May Heaven bless you !” faltered on his 
tongue ; but the words were too unusual to the 
ascetic’s cold lips for them to pass into speech, 
and the girl thought his manner more distant 
and unsympathetic than common. 

“ It is a secret I have told you,” she mur- 
mured, and being then within a few steps of 
her own gate, she slid from his grasp and van- 
ished in the darkness. 

He, with a sigh that seemed to rend the icy 


70 


Doctor Izard. 


bonds which years of repression had bound 
about his breast, remained for a moment with 
his head bent, gazing on the ground at his 
feet. Then he drew himself up, and passed 
quickly back over the road he had come. 


V. 


NOCTURNAL WANDERINGS. 

HE wanderer, of whose name even the 



.L landlord at the tavern seemed uncer- 
tain, passed some curious days after this. 
Upon the plea of wanting work, he visited 
house after house in the village, staying in 
each one as long as he was made welcome. 
Though no talker, he seemed to like to have 
talk going on around him, and if he sometimes 
went to sleep over it, he was forgiven by the 
simple and credulous inhabitants on account 
of his old age and seeming decrepitude. In 
one house he was given breakfast, in another 
dinner, but 'in none did he find work, though 
he assured everybody that he was very good 
in the field, notwithstanding the unfortunate 
curvature of his back. 

It was not an uncommon thing in Hamilton 


72 


Doctor hard. 


for men to pass from house to house in this 
way, and he was little noted, but if anyone 
had been curious enough to watch his eye they 
would have observed that it had a remarkably 
penetrating power, and that but little escaped 
its notice. Another thing that would also 
have been noticed was the curious look of 
recognition which would suddenly creep into 
his eyes, as if he saw some of these things for 
the second time ; and if anyone had walked 
near enough to him to listen as well as watch, 
he would have heard a name drop from his 
lips now and then as he walked up the phlox- 
bordered walk of some humble garden, or 
stopped at the back door of one of the more 
pretentious mansions on the main street. 

Another thing : When he had done this, 
when he had uttered in his odd, musing way, 
at the threshold of a house, the name of 
Fisher, Hutton, Brown, Unwin, or what not, 
he invariably managed in some way, either 
slyly or by bold question, to ascertain if this 
name really belonged to the family then re- 
siding there. If it did, he nodded his head 
complacently. If it did not, he frowned as if 


The Man with the Dog, 73 

disappointed in his memory or whatever it was 
that had played him false. 

At one place he showed conclusively that 
he had been in the house before, though no 
one seemed keen enough to detect the fact. 
He was passing down a hall, when he turned 
to the right and came plumb up against a wall. 
This was where there had formerly been a 
door of egress, but a change which had been 
made some ten years back in the inner arrange- 
ment of the house had placed it farther on, 
and his face showed surprise when he noted it, 
though the expression was speedily suppressed. 
Again at the Fishers’ he was very careful to 
sit in the deep shadow, and though he eagerly 
drank in all that was said, he himself made no 
remark after his first appeal for work. The 
Fishers were old neighbors of the Earles, and 
it was with them that Polly was living. 

In the afternoon he found himself at the 
eastern end of the town near the church. As 
he noticed the venerable building he seemed 
to call to mind his experiences of the night 
before, for he glanced eagerly toward the 
cemetery, and finally turned his steps in that 


74 


Doctor hard. 


direction, saying quietly to himself, “ Let ’s 
see how it looks by daylight.” 

The street, which takes a sharp turn at this 
point, was headed by the stately house whose 
dim columns and embowering trees had so 
struck the wanderer s attention the night be- 
fore. Seen by daylight it was less mysterious 
in appearance but fully as imposing, though 
there were signs of neglect on its painted 
front and solitary balconies, which spoke of 
long disuse as a dwelling. It had the name 
of Izard engraved on the tarnished door- 
plate. 

“ Let me see,” mused the tramp, leaning 
upon one of the old-fashioned gate-posts 
guarding the entrance, “ I should remember 
how the house looks inside ; I was here to a 
ball once when we were all young folks to- 
gether. It was a fine old dwelling then, and 
Mrs. Izard, who always said she could remem- 
ber Martha Washington, looked like a queen 
in it.” Lifting his head, he glanced up at the 
pillared front. “ There was a large double 
drawing-room on this side,” he murmured, 
“ with a big-figured carpet on the floor and 


75 


The Man with the Dog. 

panelled paper on the walls. I think I could 
remember the very tints if I tried, for I sat 
that night for full ten minutes staring at it, 
while Lillie Unwin chattered nonsense in my 
ear, and — ” the rest was lost in his long, dis- 
hevelled beard, which was much too gray 
to be worn by any contemporary of Dr. 
Izard. 

‘‘ On the left,” he presently proceeded, “ was 
the library, with one or two windows looking 
out upon the cemetery, which was then a 
respectable distance off ; and down the hall, 
which was wide enough to dance a Virginia 
reel in, there hung a map of the Holy Land, 
with one corner torn off. I wonder if it is 
hanging there still, and if I can remember 
which corner was lacking.” He mused a 
minute with a sour smile. “ Something must 
be pardoned in one who has been gone four- 
teen years,” he murmured. “ I cannot remem- 
ber whether it was the left or the right-hand 
corner.” Shutting his eyes, he leaned his head 
again on the post, while short, broken sen- 
tences issued by fits and starts from amid his 
beard as he brooded over the past. 


76 


Doctor hard. 


“Under the big front staircase, — I remem- 
ber it well, — there was a smaller circular one, 
which went down to a certain green door: the 
same one I noticed in the doctors office, 
though there was no office then, — only a rect- 
angular porch. He must have had the office 
built in since I left the town, for he used to see 
his patients in the library. Now, how did that 
porch look ? It was broad and low, and raised 
but a step or two above the ground. There 
were two pillars in the opening toward the 
graveyard, similar to the big columns in front, 
but smaller and set further apart. At one end 
was a wooden seat built in the wood-work, 
and at the other a green door, the same as 
that seen in the doctor’s room now. Will 
these details answer for one recollection ? I 
think they will. And now for a glimpse of 
that shaft.” 

Lifting his head from the gate-post, he 
picked his way through the tangled weeds to 
the little gate on the highway which led di- 
rectly to the doctor’s office. Entering, he ap- 
proached the tombstone against which he had 
leaned the night before, and heedless of pass- 


The Man with the Dog, 77 

ers-by, took up his stand before it and began 
reading the inscription. 

SACRED 

TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

HULDAH EARLE. 

Born December Third, 1854. 

Died August Ninth, 1878. 

I wonder who put up this monument,” he 
muttered, and shuddered slightly as he re- 
called the chilliness of the stone against which 
he had pressed his breast the night before. 
But the emotion was but transitory, and he 
was soon surveying the small square window 
through whose panes the one light had shone 
on the previous night. It was near the office 
door, and was surrounded, as he had so grate- 
fully experienced at that time, by a thick-leaved 
trumpet-vine, whose long and swaying branches 
recalled to him the anxious moment when the 
doctor had stepped to the door, drawn by some 


78 


Doctor hard. 


sound he had made in his curiosity and inter- 
est. Just now a curtain hung before the win- 
dow, sure sign that the doctor was within ; but^ 
he did not heed this, possibly because he did not 
understand the signal, and remained where he 
was, musing on the past, till the steps of some 
advancing visitor advised him that he might 
better indulge his thoughtful mood in a less 
conspicuous place, and in a solitude not so 
likely to be invaded by curious eyes. 

The dog which had joined him at his first 
appearance in town continued to be his con- 
stant companion. All day this faithful animal 
followed him, and when night came, they 
went together into the small attic chamber 
which was the only room in the house he could 
afford to pay for. But one journey which the 
man took was not shared by the dog. It took 
place at midnight and in the following mysteri- 
ous way : 

He had noticed by a minute inspection of 
the roof stretching below his one small window 
that by a few daring steps down the first in- 
cline one might reach a ledge from which de- 
scent to the ground would be easy. It was a 


79 


The Man with the Dog, 

path which might be taken with safety by a 
young man or a still vigorous middle-aged 
man. But would it be a feasible one for him ? 
He seemed to decide in the affirmative, for in 
the small wee hours of the night he rose from 
his bed, and quieting his ready dog, dressed 
himself, and took another long survey from the 
window. Then he proceeded to open the 
bundle he had brought into town, taking from 
it a small object, which he hid in the breast of 
his coat. Then he thrust a box of matches 
into the pocket of his shirt, and ignoring his 
hat, which hung on a nail in one corner, he 
began his daring descent. Throwing one leg 
out of the window and clinging to the narrow 
jamb, he whirled himself about, and develop- 
ing some of the instincts of the cat, soon 
reached the ledge in safety. Instantly his 
form, which had hitherto been so bent as to 
present almost the appearance of deformity, 
straightened itself until his whole person be- 
trayed an agility and precision surprising to 
behold in any man past the first flush of youth. 

To pass from the eaves to the shed and 
thence to the ground was the work of a moment. 


8o 


Doctor Izard, 


The crooked branch of an old apple-tree which 
grew near the house, was of decided use to 
him and enabled him to make his risky de- 
scent with comparatively no noise. When he 
was on the ground, he stopped and listened, 
then wheeling rapidly about, proceeded to 
walk up the street. 

The night was dark. and threatened storm. 
Everywhere there was a sound of swishing 
boughs and rattling panes which served to 
deaden the noise of his tread on the pavement, 
but he seemed so anxious not to attract atten- 
tion even in the darkness and solitude of this 
midnight hour that he stepped into the grass 
that bordered the road, and even took off his 
shoes that no echo might follow his move- 
ments. 

The course he took led him in an entirely 
different direction from any he had traversed 
during the day. As soon as he reached the 
point where the court house stands, he turned 
east and went up Carberry hill. As there are 
but two or three houses on this slope, his des- 
tination became speedily apparent. On the 
brow of the hill where the wind blows strong- 


The Man with the Dog. 8i 

est, stands the old Earle cottage, with its win- 
dows closed to every eye and its untrod 
doorstep hidden amid weeds that had choked 
up the entrance for many a year. In the day- 
light it had an utterly lonesome and deserted 
look, but at night, especially when the moon 
was hidden and the winds blew, it possessed a 
forbidding, almost an ominous look, which 
would have deterred anyone whose errand was 
less pressing than that of our midnight wan- 
derer, from approaching, much less examining 
a spot so given over to solitude. A row of 
stunted oak trees shielded the house on one 
side, and marked off the limits of the deserted 
garden, where burdock and thistles grew in- 
stead of the homely vegetables and old-fash- 
ioned flowers of years ago. To-night all 
these trees were bending one way in the sharp 
gale, their whistling leaves and the paty pat of 
the long limbs against the clap-boards of the 
house adding to the lugubriousness of the 
scene. 

But to the man who stood in the long grass 
at the rear of this disused dwelling there was 

nothing in the hour or place to arouse dread or 
6 


82 


Doctor hard. 


awaken apprehension. He studied the house, 
but not with the eyes of a dreamer, and when 
he finally made up his mind to approach the 
rear door it was with determination in his face 
and a certain calculation in his movement 
which proved that he was there with a definite 
purpose. 

One pull at the door evidently satisfied him 
of the uselessness of endeavoring to enter by 
force, for he left the spot at once, and began 
climbing a small shed near by. Reversing 
the plan he had followed at the tavern, he suc- 
ceeded in climbing from ledge to ledge, until 
he reached a certain window which he ruth- 
lessly smashed in. In less time than one would 
think, he had effected entrance into the house 
at the very place where there was least like- 
lihood of the attempt being discovered, namely, 
under the shadow of one of those swishing 
trees whose branches brushed so close against 
the wall that a spray of leaves immediately 
thrust itself into the opening after him, cover- 
ing up his passage with unnecessary haste, con, 
sidering that there were no watchers within 
half a mile or more. 


The Man with the Dog, 


83 


The place in which he found himself on 
dropping to the floor was so close and dark 
that he involuntarily opened out his arms to 
grope his way. But fearing broken floors and 
open staircases, he presently stopped and drew 
out the small object he had hidden in his 
breast, and which proved to be a pocket lan- 
tern. Lighting this, he looked around him 
and drew a deep breath of satisfaction. He 
was in a small attic room whose unfinished 
beams were so overlaid with cobwebs that he 
involuntarily ducked his head, though he was 
in but little danger of thrusting it against these 
noisome objects. A bed covered with a patched 
quilt was within reach of one hand, and on the 
other side was a chest of drawers with the 
articles necessary for making an humble toilet 
still on it, but so covered by the dust and cob- 
webs of years that he choked as he looked 
at it, and hesitated to set down his lantern 
on it. 

Finally he compromised matters by placing 
it on an old chair ; after which he took out a 
small blank book and began to jot down notes 
of what he saw. When finished with this room, 


84 


Doctor hard. 


he passed into another and so on into the more 
roomy living chambers in front. Here he 
paused and took a deeper breath, though the 
air was still stifling and musty. 

An opening, square in shape, occupied the 
middle of this upper floor, from which branched 
off the three sleeping rooms of this simple but 
not uncomfortable cottage. I n the square were 
books, many of which this strange intruder took 
from the shelves and rapidly glanced over. 
Then he opened the small drawers at the 
bottom of the shelves, examining the trinkets 
and knick-knacks thus disclosed, with an eye 
rapidly brightening into an expression of 
mingled hope and determination. The pic- 
tures on the wall were few, but he apparently 
saw them all, nor did he pass the decayed 
fringes of the window curtains without touch- 
ing them and noting their faded colors. 
When all that was to be seen in this small 
place was carefully remarked, the man crossed 
the threshold of the right-hand door and en- 
tered the large west chamber. 

Something, — was it the atmosphere of the 
place, or some train of recollections awakened 


85 


The Man with the Dog, 

by the objects about him ? — seemed to sub- 
due him at this point, and he paused for a mo- 
ment with his head fallen on his breast. Then 
he raised it again, and with even more resolu- 
tion than before began to survey the mildewed 
walls and faded furniture, with an eye that 
missed nothing, from the great four-poster 
to the mould-covered bellows at the side of the 
open fireplace. It had been Mrs. Earle’s bed- 
room, and had witnessed the birth of Polly 
and the long and mysterious illness which had 
terminated in the death of the mother. Here 
Ephraim Earle had lavished kisses on his 
babe and laid his icy hand over the scarcely 
colder lids of his dead wife. Here had he 
experienced his keenest joys and here had 
he suffered his greatest sorrows. The room 
seemed alive with them yet, and from every 
corner stared mementos of the past which 
were all the more eloquent and impressive 
that no foreign hand had touched them since 
their owner had passed away from their midst 
a dozen years before. Even the candle which 
had lighted her last gasp remained where it 
had been left on a little table in one corner ; 


86 


Doctor Izard. 


and beside it was a book from which the 
finger seemed to have been just withdrawn, 
though the dust that covered it lay thick on 
its browned cover, and the mark which issued 
from one end of its discolored leaves had lost 
its pristine hue and had faded to a tint almost 
beyond recognition. The stranger stopped 
before this book and seemed to be tempted to 
take it up, but refrained from doing so, as he 
had already refrained from meddling with many 
another object lying on the high cupboards 
and the tall mantel-shelf. But before the 
sticks in the fireplace he showed no such hesi- 
tation. He turned them and twirled them, 
and examined the ashes in which they had 
lain, and finally, seeing the end of a piece of 
paper, he drew it out. It was the fragment of 
a letter, worthless probably and of no especial 
interest in itself, but he seemed to regard it as 
a treasure, and after looking at it for a minute, 
he thrust it into his pocket. 

There were a few articles of apparel hang- 
ing in the press at the foot of the bed, and 
these he looked carefully over. Some of them 
were men’s clothes, and these he handled with 


§7 


The Man with the Dog, 

a lingering touch, smiling grimly as he did so. 
He even took down a coat, and after a mo- 
ment’s thought put it on, and surveyed him- 
self thus accoutered in the film-covered mirror 
at the other end of the room. But the latter 
was too clouded to make a good reflection, 
and pleased to see that the sleeves came nat- 
urally to the wrist, though the buttons failed 
to fasten over the chest, he muttered stealthily 
as he drew the garment off, “ One’s arms do 
not lengthen with age, though the body often 
grows larger. A very good test indeed ! ” 
There was a chest under the bed, and this 
he drew out, though with some evident mis- 
givings and many a sly look at the worm- 
eaten carpet over which he had been obliged 
to drag it. The lock had been fastened, but 
he opened it with the crooked nail he drew 
from his pocket ; and plunging into the trunk, 
pulled out one article after another, muttering 
in an indescribable tone as he handled each : 

My wife’s wedding dress ! The locket and 
chain I gave her! The cashmere shawl she 
always called her best I The lace folderols 
Aunt Milicent used to wear, and Grandpa 


88 


Doctor hard. 


Hallam’s gown in which he died when he was 
struck with apoplexy while preaching in 
Brother Burton’s pulpit in Charlestown. A 
collection of keepsakes all remembered by me, 
even to this old spectacle case which must 
have been her grandmother’s.” 

Putting the things all back in the exact 
order in which he found them, he relocked the 
trunk and thrust it carefully back into its old 
place. But before leaving the room he stood 
for several minutes in the doorway, and let, or 
seemed to let, the full aspect of the place sink 
into his consciousness, after which with a half- 
frightened look at the floor, as if he feared he 
had left the print of his feet behind him, he 
stepped again to the hall, and so into a small 
room adjoining. 

Here he remained longer than in the one 
he had just left ; for it had been Mr. Earle’s 
workroom and it was full of reminiscences of 
his old labors. To enumerate the various ob- 
jects which this strange intruder examined 
would occupy us too long and needlessly 
encumber this narrative. Enough that he 
gave the place the same minute inspection 


The Man with the Dog\ 89 

he had accorded to every other spot he had 
previously entered, and by force of vivid ima- 
gination or a faithful remembrance seemed to 
live for a short half-hour in a past of hope- 
ful work and mechanical triumphs. There 
was an inventor’s model in one corner, and to 
this he gave his closest attention. Though he 
laid no finger upon it, fearful perhaps of leav- 
ing some trace of his presence behind him, he 
studied its parts with a glistening eye and 
half-sarcastic smile, saying, as he turned away 
at last : 

“ This is where the art of making explosives 
stood in ’63. We have got further than that 
now.” 

There was a secretary in this room and be- 
fore it he spent most of the remaining time. 
Some old letters which he found there en- 
grossed him completely, and from one small 
drawer he took an object that interested him 
so much he failed to replace it on leaving 
the room. It was the faded miniature of a 
pale young mother and a blue-eyed babe. The 
mother had the look of the Lawrence family, 
and the child the promise of that saucy and 


90 


Doctor hard. 


irresponsible loveliness he had seen the day 
before in the new-made heiress, Polly Earle. 
This was not all he carried away. After he 
had finished the letters, he sat a long time 
musing with knitted brows and rigid hands, 
then he examined the desk, and sounding it, 
listened with accustomed ear to the echo made 
by his knuckles on the various partitions. 

Suddenly he stopped, and leaning over a 
certain receptacle, from which he had drawn a 
small drawer, he tapped again, and seeming to 
be satisfied with the result, began to manipu- 
late the place with his penknife till the false 
bottom came out and he found in the shallow 
space thus disclosed a small box which he 
eagerly pulled out, opened, and examined. 
What it held I do not know, but whatever it 
was, he thrust it with a triumphant look into 
his breast, and then repairing the mischief he ' 
had done, first closed the drawers and then 
the desk, shaking visibly as he did so, perhaps 
with something of the feeling of a thief, though 
his face had none of the aspects of one, and 
his step when he moved away had a resolution 
in it that added height to his stature, which 


The Man with the Dog. 9 1 

since he had allowed himself to walk upright 
was imposing. 

In another moment he had carried the lan- 
tern from the room, and the sleep of years had 
descended again upon its dark and silent pre- 
cincts. 


VI. 


THE PORTRAIT. 

H ad the sides of this house suddenly 
fallen in and revealed to the distant 
neighbors at the foot of the hill the vision of 
this creeping marauder passing through the 
haunted rooms and down the creaking stair- 
cases of this long-unopened house, what a 
panic of fear would have swept through them 
at the uncanny sight ! Glints of light from 
the small lantern which he carried, passed 
flickering from wall to wall, and on one win- 
dow-shade threw an exaggerated outline of his 
form with its long beard and groping hand, 
which if seen from without would have sent 
most persons hurrying down the road. But 
there was no one in the fields that night, and 
this passing glimpse of the intruder went out 
in darkness without any other alarm being 

92 


The Man with the Dog, 93 

given than that which came from the creaking 
pines and pollards without. 

He was on the first floor now, and being 
more fearful of surprise than in the rooms 
above he trod more carefully and was 
more attentive as to where the light of his 
lantern fell. The parlor, which in houses of 
this stamp is sufficiently musty when the place 
is inhabited and a dozen children pass its 
charmed door every day, was worse than a 
tomb on this night of its resurrection, and al- 
most drove the man, who so fearlessly opened 
it, into the open air for refreshment. Being 
near the ground, its walls had become a prey 
to damp and mildew, and had not the two 
family portraits adorning the space over the 
mantel-shelf been so fortunate as to hang on 
an inner wall, their ruin would not have been 
confined to the gilded frames. 

It was before these pictures the visitor took 
his stand. One was the portrait of an old 
man, and at this he barely glanced. But on 
the other he gazed earnestly and long, calling 
up the living appearance of the man it repre- 
sented and comparing it with his own. 


94 


Doctor Izard, 


“ Taken a year after marriage,” he presently 
commented, with his old sarcastic smile. 
“ That was, let me see, seventeen years ago. 
No wonder the cheeks are fresh-colored and 
the locks unmixed with gray. When I am 
shaved and my beard trimmed the difference 
of years will not be so perceptible. Yet time 
makes changes under the most favorable circum- 
stances, and when a man has led a life like mine, 
his features naturally coarsen. I must remem- 
ber this fact when people tell me I have lost 
the frank, attractive look I see here. Fast 
living and wild expenditure leave their marks, 
and I will be as good an example of the re- 
turned prodigal as any Bible-pounding exhorter 
could wish. Yet,” and he sighed, “it is not 
altogether pleasant to remember one’s mis- 
deeds, or to note the difference in such a face 
as this and that which lies under my long, dis- 
figuring beard.” 

These words, which he had uttered aloud, 
had no sooner left his lips than he was 
startled by the silence that followed. A sense 
of his position suddenly came over him, and 
casting one final glance at the portrait, he 


The Man with the Dog, 95 

turned quickly away, murmuring under his 
breath : 

“That ring on the finger, — it was pawned 
long ago. What a past I will have to disclose 
if my friends inquire into the matter too 
closely.” 

Fifteen minutes more he spent in cellar and 
attic, and then he swung himself out of the 
window on to the tree, and thence lightly to 
the ground. As he did so he thought he 
heard a sigh, but just at that moment the trees 
gave a great swish and bent almost double, 
and he forgot the lesser sound and never 
thought to look behind him when he started to 
move down the road. 

Had he done so, he would have seen by the 
first faint streaks of morning light, a figure 
standing at the angle of the house, with hat 
pulled low, and hands thrust out in supersti- 
tious protest at what was evidently considered 
a spectre stalking from the haunted house. 

The next day the bent and feeble wayfarer 
announced that there was no work to be found 
in Hamilton, and took his leave of the place, 
followed by the faithful dog. But at the out- 


96 


Doctor hard. 


skirts of the town, the latter paused, and 
whining, raised his protest at this departure ; 
and when he found that his new master was 
determined to go, he lay down in the dusty 
road and refused to accompany him any fur- 
ther. 

He would not leave the town in which his 
old master lay buried. 


PART III. 


A RETURN. 


VII. 

WHAT THE STROKE OF A BELL CAN DO. 

I T was in the latter part of June, and the 
day was so perfect that it seemed like 
wanton waste to use the hours for study or 
work. The roses, which were always plenti- 
ful in the Fisher garden, had probably passed 
their prime, but their perfume was still in the 
air, and there were enough lingering buds on 
the thorny stalks to tempt Polly into their 
midst. She had gathered quite a bouquet, and 
was turning toward the house when she heard 
her name called. Blushing delightfully, she 
stopped. 

7 


97 


98 


Doctor Izard, 


Young Unwin was leaning over the wall 
that separated the two gardens. 

‘'Polly, Polly!” he called. “Come here, 
dear, I have something of real importance to 
say to you.” 

His tone was graver than usual, and her gay 
spirits were dashed, yet the dimples remained 
in her cheeks and the saucy gleam in her 
eye, as drawing near, she paused, with a mock 
curtsey, just out of his arm’s reach on her side 
of the wall. 

“Well, what is it, Mr. Persistency?” said 
she, a delicious smile robbing her words of 
any sting they might otherwise have contained. 
“ This is the third time to-day you have sum- 
moned me to this wall.” 

“ Once to give you a rare flower, which had 
just opened in the conservatory. Once to see 
if you appreciated this lovely day, and once, — 
O Polly, my father is anything but well to-day.” 

Her face, which had been brimming with 
mirth sobered instantly. 

“Is he going to die?” she inquired, with 
alarm. 

“ I fear so, dear, and so it becomes our 


A Return, 


99 


duty to tell him our wishes and expectations. 
Are you willing to go with me to his bedside ? 
We should love each other more dearly for his 
blessing.” 

“ Do you think ” — the words came with dif- 
ficulty, — “that he will give us his blessing?” 

“ I think so ; he has always seemed to like 
you, has he not? ” 

“ Yes, but ” 

“I know what you mean, Polly; and it 
would be sheer hypocrisy for me not to ac- 
knowledge what every one knows, that my 
father is a very proud man and that he is likely 
to have ambitious hopes for his son. But are 
they not likely to be realized by our marriage ? 
When you have taken up your abode in the 
old Izard mansion, you will be quite an eligible 
match even for Squire Unwin’s son.” A ten- 
der, yet half-sarcastic smile took the edge off 
these words, and showed the little maiden 
how dearly she was loved. Whereupon she 
shook her pretty head. 

“ But I am so lacking in accomplishments, 
Clarke, and he so admires an accomplished 
woman. Why, I barely know one language 


lOO 


Doctor hard. 


well, and your stepmother, I hear, speaks 
three.” 

“ All of which she will teach you, dear. 
Accomplishments are easily acquiied. In five 
years you will be a model of learning and 
culture.” 

She laughed. “ I look like it, do I not ? 
See. I have not even bought myself a new 
dress. I have had other things to think of.” 

“ I like you in that rose pink gingham, but 
my father has a great fondness for white. 
Have n’t you a white dress, Polly ?” 

“ You know I have,” she pouted. “ Did n’t 
you tell me last Sunday that ” 

“ Ah, I remember. Yes, yes, put that dress 
on and come round by the front gate ; I will 
be there to meet you.” 

“ But Mrs. Unwin ? You have not told me 
whether she is likely to approve. I should 
not want her to greet me coldly.” 

My mother? My darling mother? I never 
think of her as a stepmother, Polly dear. Oh, 
she knows all about it and is ready to welcome 
you as a daughter.” 

The young girl, with a sudden lift of her 


A Return, 


loi 


head, smiled joyously and seemed to gather 
courage at once. 

“I will go,” she frankly declared. “^And 
yet I dread to meet him. Is he so very sick, 
and will his looks frighten me ?” 

“ It may be,” answered Clarke, “ but I shall 
be there to make it as easy for you as possible. 
Do not think of my father, but of me and my 
love.” 

She sighed with joy and ran off, as free a 
thing as the sun shone upon ; and he watching 
her felt his heart soften more and more to her 
womanly sweetness. 

My father will feel her charm,” he mur- 
mured, and hastened up the garden walk to 
the gate where he had promised to wait for 
her. 

Clarke Unwin was no ordinary man. He 
was the thoughtful son of a proud reserved 
father, and he had an aim in life quite apart 
from the accumulation of wealth, which had 
so distinguished the elder man. He was ambi- 
tious of becoming a famous electrician and 
had already shown sufficient talent in this 
direction for his friends to anticipate great re- 


102 


Doctor Izard. 


suits from his efforts. He had a scheme now 
on hand which only needed the small capital 
which his father had promised him to be- 
come, as he believed, a practical reality. In- 
deed, negotiations had already been entered 
into for his entrance into a firm of enterpris- 
ing men in Cleveland, where his energy 
would have full scope. All that he needed 
was the money which they required as a 
guaranty against failure, and this money, 
some five thousand dollars or so, had, as I have 
said, been promised to him, though not yet 
advanced, by his indulgent parent. 

To sound that fathers mind on this and on 
the still dearer subject of his marriage, young 
Unwin had prevailed upon Polly to enter this 
house of sickness. At the door they were met 
by a sweet-faced lady, who took Polly in her 
arms before seating her in a little ante-room. 

“ I must ask you to remain here for just a 
few minutes,” said she. “ It would be a shock 
to Mr. Unwin to see you without any prepara- 
tion. Clarke will have a talk with his father 
first, and then come back for you. Let me 
hope it will be with a welcome that will make 


A Return, 


103 


amends to you for your long years of orphan- 
age among us.” 

“ You are very good,” came from the trem- 
bling lips of the young girl. Mrs. Unwin’s 
grace and unconscious dignity always abashed 
her. 

“ Clarke informs me that you are not lack- 
ing in that same desirable quality,” whispered 
the other lady, and with a smile which gave 
an air of pathos to her faded yet beautiful 
face, she turned away and followed her son 
out into the hall. As they passed along she 
impetuously stopped and faced him. Grace 
Unwin had been a mother to Clarke for thir- 
teen years, and she loved him devotedly. 

Clarke,” said she, “ I dread this ordeal 
most unaccountably. Your father has had 
something on his mind of late. Do you know 
of any trouble weighing upon him besides this 
dreadful one of leaving us?” 

No,” rejoined the wondering youth. “ He 
has never confided in me, mother, as much as 
he has in you. If you know nothing — ” 

And I do not,” she murmured. 

You must have been deceived by your af- 


1 04 Doctor Izard, 

fection. He is not the man to brood over 
petty troubles, or to be cast down by matters 
he could regulate with a word.” 

“ I know it, yet he has not appeared natural 
to me for some time. Long before the 
physician told him that his disease was mortal, 
his actions betrayed a melancholy which has 
always been foreign to his nature, and for the 
very reason that he has succeeded in hiding it 
from you, I feel that it has its seat in some- 
thing vital.” 

“ And have you never asked him what it 
was, dear mother? You who are such a ten- 
der nurse and so adored a wife must have 
moments when even his reserve would yield to 
such gentle importunities as yours.” 

“ It would seem so, but I have never dared 
to broach the subject. When your father 
chooses to be silent, it is difficult for any one 
to question him.” 

“Yes, mother; and yet I must dare his dis- 
pleasure to-day. I must know his mind about 
Polly.” 

“ Yes, that is right, and Heaven’s blessing go 
with you. I shall be outside here in the hall. 


A Return, 




If you strike the bell once I will fetch in Polly ; 
if you strike it -twice, I will come in alone; if 
you do not strike it at all, I will remain where 
I am, praying God to give you patience to 
meet the disappointment of your life.” 

The man whose reticent nature had aroused 
this conversation was just waking from a fret- 
ful sleep when his son entered. He was a 
tall, spare man with an aristocratic air and a 
fine head, who was wont to walk the streets as 
if the whole town belonged to him, and who 
had been spoken of as “the Squire” from his 
earliest manhood. Now his proud head lay 
low, and his once self-satisfied countenance 
wore a look that caused a pang to strike the 
heart of his son, before the unrest visible in 
his whole figure could find vent in words. 

“What is it, father? You look distressed; 
cannot something be done to relieve you ?” 

The man who had never been known to 
drop his eyes before any-one slowly turned his 
face to the wall. 

“ There is no help,” he murmured ; “ my 
hour has come.” And he was silent. Clarke 
moved uneasily; he hardly knew what to do. 


io6 


Doctor Izard, 


It seemed cruel to disturb his father at this 
moment, and yet his conscience told him he 
would be wrong to delay a communication 
that would set him right in his own eyes. 
The father settled the matter by saying 
abruptly : “ Sit down, I have something to 
say to you.” 

Clarke complied, drawing a chair close up 
to the bedside. He knew that one of his 
fathers peculiarities was a dislike to raising 
his voice. For a moment he waited, but the 
father seemed loath to speak. Clarke there- 
fore remarked, after a certain time had 
passed : 

“ Nothing you can say to me will fail of 
having my respectful attention. If I can do 
anything to relieve your cares — ” The look 
which his father here turned upon him startled 
him from continuing. Never had he seen 
such an expression in those eyes before. 

“Can you go so far as to forgive?” the 
old man asked. 

“ Forgive ? ” echoed Clarke, hardly believ- 
ing his ears. “ What is there 1 have to for- 
give in you ? The benefits you have bestowed 


A Return. 


107 

upon me, the education I have received and 
your fatherly care ? ” 

“Hush!” the half-lifted hand seemed to 
entreat and a shadow of the old commanding 
aspect revisited the ashy countenance before 
him. “You do not know all that has hap- 
pened this last year. I have ruined you, 
Clarke, ruined your mother ; and now I must 
die without having the opportunity of retriev- 
ing myself.” 

Surprised out of his usual bearing of pro- 
found respect, Clarke sprang to his feet. 

“ Do you mean,” he asked, “ that your 
money is gone ; that you are dying a bank- 
rupt ? ” 

The old man — for Frederick Unwin was 
twenty years older than his wife — grew so 
pale that his son became seriously alarmed. 

“ You are sick — fainting,” he cried ; let me 
call someone.” But a glance from his 
fathers commanding eye held him where he 
stood. 

“ No, no ; it is from shame, Clarke, possibly 
from grief. You have been on the whole a 
good boy, and I have taken pride in you. To 


Doctor Izard. 


108 

leave you with your hopes dashed, and the 
care of a mother on your hands, is a humilia- 
tion I never expected. I — I have lost all, 
Clarke, and am, besides, in debt. I have not 
five hundred dollars to give you, let alone five 
thousand. You will have to take up with 
some lesser position, some clerkship with a 
salary, reserving to yourself the right to curse 
a father who was so shortsighted as to invest 
his whole fortune in a mine that petered out 
before the machinery was paid for.” 

Clarke, to whom the prospect thus opened 
meant the demolition of more than one dream, 
sat dazed for a moment in a state of despair, 
not noticing that his arm had struck the bell 
on the small table beside which he was sitting, 
making it ring out in one clear, low note. 

“ There is even a mortgage on this house,” 
the wretched father went on. “ I thought the 
amount so raised might bridge me over my 
present difficulties, but it is gone like the rest, 
and now it only remains for me to be gone, 
too, for you to understand into what a position 
I have put you by my folly and ignorance.” 

“ Father 1 would not let any one else 


A Return, 


109 


speak of you so in my hearing. You meant 
to better your position, and if you made mis- 
takes, we — that is, my mother and myself, 
must try and retrieve them.” 

“ But your chances with Stevens and Wright ? 
Your excellent plan for — ” The son sup- 
pressed the sigh that rose to his lips and reso- 
lutely lifted his head. 

“ That dream is over,” he said. I shall 
think no more of my own advancement, but 
only of supporting my mother by any humble 
means that offers.” 

“ You have not confidence enough in your 
schemes to borrow the money you want?” 

“ I will never borrow.” 

The old man, weakened by illness and 
shaken by the break he had just made in an 
almost life-long reserve, uttered a deep sigh. 
Clarke, whose thoughts were with Polly as 
much as they were with his surrendered 
hopes, re-echoed this sound of despair before 
saying : 

“ I have always cherished a certain sort of 
pride, too. I could not feel free under a bur- 
den of debt incurred for something whose 


o 


Doctor Izard, 


value is yet to be tested. I cannot be beholden 
to any one for a start which is as likely to lead 
to failure as to success.” 

“ Not if that person is your promised wife ?” 
burst from trembling and eager lips behind 
him, and Polly, accompanied by Mrs. Unwin, 
who had mistaken the ring of the bell for the 
signal which had been established between 
herself and Clarke, stepped into the room, and 
advanced with timid steps but glowing cheeks 
into the presence of the equally astonished son 
and father. 

“ Polly ! ” sprang involuntarily from the 
lovers lips, as he rose and cast a doubtful 
glance toward his father. But the latter, roused 
by the fresh young face turned so eagerly tow- 
ard him, had lost his white look, and was star- 
ing forward with surprised but by no means 
repelling glances. 

“ What does she say ? ” he murmured. 
“This should be Polly Earle, to whom some 
kindly friend has just left twenty thousand 
dollars. Does she love you, Clarke, and was 
the word she just used ' wife ’ I’m getting 
so dull of hearing with this ceaseless pain, that 


A Return. 


1 1 1 


I do not always understand what is said in my 
presence.” 

Clarke, delighted with the eagerness ap- 
parent in his suffering father’s look and man- 
ner, took the young girl by the hand and 
brought her forward. ‘‘ This is the woman 
whom I chose for my wife when I thought my 
prospects warranted me in doing so. But now 
that I have little else than debts to offer 
her, I have scruples in accepting her affection, 
dear as it is and disinterested as she shows 
herself. I would not seem to take advantage 
of her youth.” 

“ But it is I,” she broke in gayly, ‘ who am 
likely to take advantage of your disappoint- 
ments ! I heard by mistake, I think, some- 
thing of what your father has had to say to 
you, and my only feeling, you see, is one of 
delight that I can do something to show my 
gratitude for all that you and others have 
done for me in the years when I was a penni- 
less orphan. Is that a wrong feeling, Mr. 
Unwin, and will you deny me the privilege 
of — ” She could say no more, but her eyes, 
her lips, her face were one appeal, and that of 


I I 2 


Doctor Izard. 


the most glowing kind. Clarke’s eyes dropped 
lest they should betray his feelings too vividly, 
and Mrs. Unwin, who had thrown her arm 
around Polly, turned her face toward her hus- 
band with such an expression of thankfulness 
that he did not know which caused him the 
greater surprise, his wife’s sudden beauty or 
the frank yet timorous aspect of this hitherto 
scarcely noted young girl in the presence of 
the two great masters of the world. Love and 
Death. 

Come here ! ” he finally entreated, holding 
out one shaking hand toward Polly. She 
tossed her hat aside like a wild creature who 
recoils from any sort of restraint, and coming 
up close to the bed, fell on her knees by his 
side. 

'‘So you love Clarke?” he queried. 

Her eyes and cheeks spoke for her. 

“ Love him well enough to marry him even 
now, with all his debts and disabilities?” 

Still her looks spoke ; and he went calmly 
on : “ Then, my little girl, you shall marry 

him, and when you see him prosperous and 
on the high road to success in his chosen field 


A Return, 


113 

of labor, — think that his father blesses you and 
that by your loyalty and devotion you took 
away the sting from an old man’s death.” 

A sob and a smile answered him, and Clarke, 
to whom this scene was the crowing glory of 
his love, turned and took his mother in his 
arms, before stooping to raise his young be- 
trothed. It was the happiest hour in this fam- 
ily’s history, but it was the precursor of sorrow. 
That night Mr. Unwin died. 


VIII. 


THE HOUSE ON THE HILL. 

HERE were two topics of interest agi- 



^ tating the town. One was the appear- 
ance of a new hermit in the old cave on the 
mountain side, and the other, the sale of the 
Unwin mansion and the prospective removal 
of Frederick Unwin’s widow and son into the 
haunted house of the Earles. The latter oc- 
casioned the greater amount of talk. That 
this move on their part was but the prelimi- 
nary step to a marriage between Clarke and the 
young heiress had been known for some time. 
But to see a house so long deserted reopened, 
its doors and windows thrown wide to the sun, 
and the smoke rising once more from its deso- 
late chimneys, was an event calculated to in- 
terest all who had felt the indescribable awe 
surrounding a place abandoned by human life 


A Return. 


115 

while yet possessing all the appointments of 
a home. 

Polly, who for some reason had given up her 
former plan of renting the big Izard place, was 
full of business and glowing with the excite- 
ment of what was considered by many in the 
town a rather daring venture. Even Dr. 
Izard, who was not wont to show emotion, 
looked startled when he heard of her inten- 
tions, and seemed disposed to forbid the young 
girl letting a house so given over to damp and 
mildew. But when she urged the necessity of 
providing Mrs. Unwin with an irrynediate home 
and hinted at the reluctance which that lady 
had shown to living at the other end of the 
village, he relented and merely insisted that 
the place should be thoroughly aired and reno- 
vated before Mrs. Unwin went into it. As 
he was not that lady’s physician, had never 
been even a visitor at the Unwin mansion, he 
could say no more. But Polly needed no 
further hint, and went back to her own humble 
home with the most generous projects in her 
head for Mrs. Unwin’s future comfort and 
happiness. 


Doctor Izard, 


1 16 

It was a great day in Hamilton when she 
and Clarke and five or six interested neighbors 
first threw open the creaking front door of the 
Earle cottage and let the sunlight stream into 
its hushed interior. To her, who had never 
been permitted to enter the place since she 
had been taken from it fourteen years before, 
it was an event merely to press her foot on 
the worm-eaten carpets and slide her fingers 
along the walls that had once felt the touch 
of her parents’ garments. Each room was a 
revelation, each corner a surprise. She glided 
from hall to chamber and from chamber to 
hall like the spirit of a younger age introduced 
into the memorials of a long-departed one. 
Her fresh cheek, from which even awe could 
not quite banish the dimples, looked out of 
place and yet strangely beautiful amid the dim 
surroundings of the stiffly-ordered rooms and 
old-fashioned furnishings. 

With an instinct natural enough under the 
circumstances, she had wished to be the first 
to enter the house and cross the threshold 
of each apartment. But Clarke was not far 
behind her. In front of the portrait of her 


A Return, 


117 

father she paused and drew her friends around 
her. 

“ Oh !” she cried ; “it was wrong to keep 
this from me ; I should have been brought up 
under the influence of that face.” But as she 
further contemplated it, her first enthusiasm 
faded and an indescribable look of vague dis- 
trust stole into her rosy countenance, and 
robbed it of half its joyousness. “ I — I wish 
there was a picture of my mother here,” she 
whispered to Clarke, whose arm she had nerv- 
ously seized. “ She had a beautiful face, they 
say, all gentleness and goodness.” 

“ Perhaps we shall find one upstairs,” he 
suggested, turning to open more windows. 

“ Oh, it is cold,” she murmured, and moved 
with quite an unaccustomed air of gravity 
toward the staircase. Her mothers room, 
with its many suggestions of days which were 
not entirely forgotten by her, seemed to re- 
store her mental balance, shaken by that short 
contemplation of her father’s portrait. She 
wept as her eyes fell upon the bed where she 
had last seen the outstretched form of her dy- 
ing mother ; but her tears were tender and quite 


i8 


Doctor Izard, 


unlike, both in their source and effect, the 
shuddering recoil which had seized her after 
she had gazed a few minutes at her fathers 
pictured face. 

The book which a certain hand had hesi- 
tated to touch not so very long ago, she took 
up, and opening with some difficulty the pages 
which time and dampness had glued together, 
she showed Clarke these words, written on one 
of the blank leaves in front : 

“Ah ! what is life ! 

’T is but a passing touch upon the world ; 

A print upon the beaches of the earth 
Next flowing wave will wash away ; a mark 
That something passed ; a shadow on a wall, 

While looking for the substance, shade departs : 

A drop from the vast spirit-cloud of God, 

That rounds upon a stock, a stone, a leaf, 

A moment, then exhales again to God.” 

“ My mother’s writing, I know 1 What a 
difference in our dispositions ! Where do you 
suppose I got my cheerful temperament from? 
Not from my father ? ” And again she faintly 
shuddered. 

Your father’s desk is in the other room,” 


A Return, 1 1 9 

commented somebody. Looking up she laid 
the book softly down and prepared to leave 
the one spot in the house of which she had any 
remembrance. “ I shall hate to see this dust 
removed, or these articles touched. Do you 
think I could be allowed to do the first hand- 
ling? It is so like a sacrilege to give it over 
to some stranger.” 

But Clarke shook his head. “ I have let 
you come with us into this damp house because 
it seemed only proper that your eyes should 
be the first to meet its desolation. I shall not 
let you remain here one moment after we are 
gone. If I were willing, Dr. Izard would not 
be ; so do not think of it again.” 

The name of the doctor seemed to awaken 
in her a strange chain of thought. 

“ Ah, Dr. Izard ! He was standing beside 
my father when he closed my mother’s eyes. 
Why did he not come with me this morning to 
see me open the house ? I begged him to do 
so but he declined quite peremptorily.” 

'' Dr. Izard does not like me,” remarked 
Clarke sententiously. 

“Does not like you? Why?” queried 


I 20 


Doctor Izard, 


Polly innocently, pausing on the threshold 
they were crossing. 

I do not know : he has always avoided me, 
more than he has other people, I mean — and 
once when I spoke to him, the strangest ex- 
pression crossed his face.” 

“ I do not understand. He has always been 
very kind to me. Are you sure that you like 
him ?” 

“ I am indifferent to him ; that is, I admire 
him, as everyone must who has eyes and an 
understanding. But I have no feeling toward 
him ; he does not seem to have any place in 
my life.” 

He has in mine,” she reluctantly admitted. 
“ I often go to him for advice.” 

“ Was it by his advice,” whispered Clarke, 
bending till his mouth touched her ear, “ that 
you gave me your heart ? ” 

The little hand that lay on his arm drew it- 
self slowly out and fell quite softly and signifi- 
cantly on her heaving breast. 

No,” said she. “ I have another adviser 
here, fully as powerful as he can ever be.” 

The gesture, the accent were so charming 


A Return. 


121 


that he was provoked at the peering curiosity 
of the persons accompanying them. He would 
have liked to kiss those rosy lips for the sweetest 
thing they had ever said. 

Had the midnight visitor of a few weeks 
back known what a careless crowd would soon 
invade these hidden premises he might not 
have been so wary in his movements. When 
Polly reached her father s desk, she found one 
or two neighbors there before her. 

Oh, look at this curious old inkstand ! ” 
exclaimed one. 

And at this pile of note-books standing 
just where Ephraim Earle must have laid them 
down ! ” 

And at this pen with the ink dried on it ! ’’ 
“ And at this ridiculous little China shepher- 
dess pursing up her lips as if she knew the 
whole mystery but would not tell ! ” 

Polly, whose ears had been more or less 
closed by the episode with Clarke just above 
mentioned, seemed scarcely to hear their words. 
She stood by her father’s work-table with her 
hand on her father’s chair, in a dream of love 
that moistened her down-cast eyes and awak- 


122 


Doctor Iziird. 


ened strange, tremulous movements in the 
corners of her sensitive lips. But soon the 
tokens of past ambition and of interrupted 
labor everywhere apparent, began to influ- 
ence her spirits, and her looks showed a 
depression which was nothing less than start- 
ling to Clarke. Even the neighbors observed 
it and moved chattering away, so that in a few 
minutes Polly and Clarke were left standing 
alone in this former scene of her father s toil 
and triumphs. 

“ What is the matter, my darling ?” he now 
asked, seeing her turn away from the very 
objects he supposed would interest her most. 

“ I do not know,” she answered. “ I do not 
like this room ; I do not like the effect it has 
upon me.” Had the gliding visitant whose 
shadow had last fallen on these walls left some 
baleful influence behind him, or was the cause 
of her distrust of deeper origin and such as 
she hardly dared admit to herself ? 

“ The air is close here,” remarked Clarke ; 
“ and the presence of all this dust is enough to 
stifle anyone. Let us go down into the gar- 
den and get a breath of fresh air.” 


A Return, 


123 


She pointed to the open windows. “ How 
can it be close with all this light pouring in ? 
No, no, it is not that ; I am simply frightened. 
Did you ever stop to think ?” she suddenly in- 
quired, “what I should do or how I should feel 
if — if my father came back ? ” 

“ No,” he replied startled. “No one sup- 
poses him to be alive. Why should you have 
such morbid thoughts ? ” 

“ I do not know.” She laughed and endeav- 
ored to throw off the shadow that had fallen 
upon her. “ You must think me very super- 
stitious, but I would not walk down that rear 
passage for anything ; not even with you, 
I should expect to encounter a tall, military- 
looking figure, with a face pleasing enough at 
first sight, but which would not bear close 
scrutiny. A face like the painted one below,” 
she added, with an involuntary shudder. 

“ But that is not a bad face ; it is only a 
keen and daring one. I like it very much. I 
remember my mother has always said you 
inherited your beauty from your father.” 

But this seemed to irritate her indescribably, 
“ No, no,” she cried, shaking her head and al- 


Doctor hard. 


1 24 

most stamping her little foot. “ I don’t believe 
it and I won’t have it ! ” Then, as if startled by 
her own vehemence, she blushed and dragged 
him away toward the door. He may have been 
handsome, but I have not eyes like his, I am 
sure. I f I could only see how my mother looked.” 

In the hall below they paused. There was 
much to be said concerning the contemplated 
alterations to be made in the house, but 
she did not seem to take any interest in the 
matter. Evidently the effect of her visit up- 
stairs had not entirely left her, for just as they 
were turning toward the door she gave an in- 
voluntary look behind her, and laughing, to 
show her sense of the foolishness of her own 
words, she cried : 

“So we did not meet my father’s ghost after 
all. Well now, I may be sure that his interest 
is in other scenes and that he will never come 
back here.” As she spoke a shadow crossed 
the open doorway. 

“Do not be too sure of anything!” inter- 
posed a voice, and a strange but by no means 
attractive looking man stepped calmly into the 
house and paused with a low bow before her. 


IX. 


ASK DR. IZARD. 


OLLY uttered a sharp cry and stared at 



A the intruder blankly. He was tall and 
military looking and had a smooth, well-shaven 
face. But his clothes were in rags and his 
features, worn by illness and coarsened by dis- 
sipation were of a type to cause a young girl 
like her to recoil. 

“ Who is this man ? ” she cried at last, “ and 
what is he doing here ? ” 

‘‘It is the new hermit ! The man who has 
taken up with Hadley’s old quarters,” exclaimed 
one of the neighbors from the group about 
Polly. “ I saw him yesterday in the grave- 
yard.” 

“Yes, and there is his dog. Piper. He fol- 
lows every old tramp who comes into town. 
Don’t you remember how he tagged at the 


126 


Doctor Izard, 


heels of that old beggar with a long beard, 
who went through here a month ago ?” 

“ This fellow looks as if he were strong 
enough to work,” whispered one of the women. 

“ I shan’t give any of my stale victuals to 
a man with an arm strong enough to fell an 
ox,” murmured another. 

Here Clarke, who had only waited for an 
opportunity to speak, now advanced to the 
man standing in the doorway. As he did so 
he noticed that the wayfarer’s attention was not 
fixed upon the persons before him, but upon the 
walls and passages of the house they were in. 

“Have you come here begging?” he in- 
quired. “If so you have made a mistake ; 
this is a disused house which we have been 
opening for the first time in years.” 

“ I know its every room and its every cor- 
ner,” answered the haggard-looking tramp 
imperturbably. “ I could tell you what lies 
under the stairs in the cellar, and point out to 
you the books which have been stacked away 
in the garret : That is, if no other hand has 
disturbed them since I placed them there fifteen 
years ago.” 


A Return, 


127 


A cry of astonishment, of despair almost, 
answered these words. It came from the 
blanching lips of Polly. Clarke trembled as 
he heard it, but otherwise gave no sign of con- 
cern. On the contrary he eyed the intruder 
authoritatively. 

‘'Tell me your name!” he demanded. 
“Are you ” 

“ I will not say who I am, here, with the sun- 
light streaming on my back and no friendly 
eye to recognize my features. I will only, 
speak from under the portrait of Ephraim 
Earle ; I want a witness to the truth of my 
statements and in that canvas I look for it.” 

And neither heeding Clarke’s detaining 
hand, nor the almost frantic appeal which 
spoke in the eyes of the young girl whose 
question he had at last answered, he stalked 
into the parlor and paused directly beneath the 
portrait he had named. 

“Cannot you see who I am?” he asked, 
rearing his tall head beside the keen-faced 
visage that looked down from the wall. 

“ The same man grown older,” exclaimed 
one. 


28 


Doctor Izard, 


Ephraim Earle himself ! ” echoed another. 

“ Come back from the dead ! ” 

“ The moment the house was opened ! ” 

“Are you Ephraim Earle?” demanded 
Clarke, trembling for Polly in whose breast 
a real and unmistakable terror was rapidly 
taking the place of an imaginary one. 

“ Since I must say so, yes ! ” was the firm 
reply. “ Where is my daughter ? She should 
be on hand here to greet me.” 

“ I have no words of welcome. I never 
thought of my father being like this. Take 
me away, Clarke, take me away ! ” So spoke 
the terrified little one, clinging to one of her 
best-known neighbors for support. 

“ I will take you away,” Clarke assured her. 
“ There is no need of your greeting this man 
till he has proved his claim to you. A girls 
heart cannot be expected to embrace such a 
fact in a moment.” 

“ Oh, it’s Ephraim Earle fast enough,” in- 
sisted one old woman. “ I remember him 
well. Don’t you remember me, old neigh- 
bor ? ” 

“ Don’t I ? ” was the half hearty, half jeering 


A Return, 


129 

answer. “ And I wish I had a pair of your 
green and white worsted socks now.” 

“ It ’s he, it 's he ! ” vociferated the delighted 
woman. When he was a young man I sold 
him many a pair of my knitting. To be sure 
I use blue now instead of green, but they were 
all green in his day, bless him ! ” As this 
prayer was not repeated by her companions 
in the room, upon whom his reckless if not 
sinister appearance had made anything but a 
happy impression, he came slowly from under 
the picture and stood for a moment before the 
dazed and shrinking Polly. 

“You are not glad to see me,” he remarked, 
“ and I must say I do not wonder. I have lived 
a hard life since I left you a crying child in your 
mother’s room upstairs, but I am your father, 
for all that, and you owe me respect if not 
obedience. Look up, Maida, and let me see 
what kind of a woman you have grown to 
be.” 

At this name, which had been a pet one with 
her parents and with them alone, the neighbors 
stared and Polly shrank, feeling the iron of 
certainty pierce deep into her soul. She met 


i:,o 


Doctor Izard, 


his eyes, however, with courage and answered 
his demand by a very natural reproach. 

‘'If you are my father, and alas ! I see no 
reason to doubt it, I should think you would 
feel some shame in alluding to a growth which 
you have done nothing to advance.” 

“I know,” he admitted, “that you have 
something with which to reproach me ; the 
secret of those days is not for ears like yours. 
I left you, but — never ask me why, Maida. 
And now, go out into the sun. I should not 
like to have my first act toward you a cruel 
one.” 

Dazed, almost fainting, doubting whether or 
no she was the victim of some horrible night- 
mare, she let herself be led away to where 
the sun shone down on the lilacs of the over- 
grown garden. But no sooner did she realize 
that the man of her dread had been left in the 
house with her neighbors than she urged Clarke 
to return at once to where he was. 

“ Let him be watched,” she cried ; “ follow 
him as he goes about the house. It is his ; I 
feel that it is his, but do not let us succumb to 
his demands without a struggle. He has such 


A Return, 


131 

a wicked face, and his tones are so harsh and 
unfatherly.” 

Clarke, who had come to a similar conclu- 
sion, though by other means than herself, 
hastened to obey her. He found the self- 
styled Earle in the midst of the group of 
neighbors, chattering freely and answering 
questions with more or less free and easy ban- 
ter. Though privation spoke in every outline 
of his face and form, and poverty in every rag 
of his dress, his bearing gave evidences of re- 
finement, and no one, not even Clarke himself, 
doubted that if he were put to the test he 
would show himself to be at least the wreck 
of the once brilliant scholar and man of re- 
sources. He was drawing the whole crowd 
after him through the house and was hazard- 
ing guesses right and left to prove the excel- 
lence of his memory. 

“ Let us see,” he cried, as they one and all 
paused at the top of the staircase, before en- 
entering the rooms on the upper floor. “ I 
used to keep my books here — such ones as I 
had not discarded and stacked away in the 
topmost story. And I used to pride myself 


132 


Doctor Izard, 


on knowing where every volume was kept. 
Consult the shelves for me now and see if on 
the third one from the bottom and nearer to 
the left than to the right there is not a volume 
of Bacon’s Essays. There is ? Good ! I knew 
it would be there if some one had not moved 
it. And the ten volumes of Shakespeare — are 
they not on the lower shelf somewhere near 
the middle? I thought so. A capital old edi- 
tion it is, too ; printed by T. Bensley for 
Wynne & Scholey, Paternoster Row. And 
Gibbon’s Rise and Fall^ with a volume of 
Euripides fora companion? Yes? And on 
the topmost shelf of all, far out of the reach 
of any hand but mine, a choice edition of 
Hawthorne — my favorite author. Do you see 
them all ? I am glad of that ; I loved my 
books, and often when very far away from 
them used to recall the hour when I had them 
under my eye and within reach of my hand.” 

“ I wonder if he used to recall the child he 
left, tossed helpless upon the mercies of the 
town ? ” murmured one of the neighbors. 

Is my desk here, and has it been touched ? ” 
he now asked, proceeding hastily into the work- 


A Return, 


133 


room. Ah, it all looks very natural,” he re- 
marked ; “ very natural ! I can scarcely believe 
that I have been gone more than a day. Oh, 
there ’s the model of the torpedo I was plan- 
ning ! Let me see,” and he lifted up the half- 
completed model, with what Clarke could not 
but call a very natural emotion, looking it 
over part by part and finally putting it down 
with a sigh. “Good for those days,” he com- 
mented, “but would not answer now. Too 
complicated by far ; explosive agencies should 
be more simple in their construction.” And 
so on for half an hour ; then he descended and 
walked away of his own accord to the front 
door. 

“ I have seen the old place ! ” he blandly 
observed, “ and that is all I expected. If my 
daughter sees fit to acknowledge me, she will 
seek me in the wild spot in which I have 
made for myself a home. Here I shall not 
come again. I have not returned to the place 
of my birth to be a bugbear to my only 
child.” 

“ But,” cried some one in protest, “you are 
poor and you are hungry.” 


134 


Doctor Izard. 


“ I am what fate and my own folly have 
made me,” he declared. “ I ask for no sym- 
pathy, nor do I feel disposed to urge my 
natural rights.” 

“If you are Polly Earle’s father, you will 
be fed and you will be clothed,” put in Clarke 
hotly. “ There is a meal for you now at the 
tavern, if you will go there and take it.” 

But the proud man, pointing to his dog 
drew himself up and turned scornfully away. 
“ He can procure me as much as that,” said 
he. “ When my daughter has affection and a 
child’s consideration to show me, then let her 
come to Hadley’s cave. Food! Clothing I I 
have had an apology for both for fourteen 
years, but love — never ; and all I want just 
now is love 1 ” 

. Polly, who was not many steps off, heard 
these words and, moved by fear or disgust, 
dropped her hands which she had instinctively 
raised at his approach. He saw and smiled 
grimly, then with a bow that belied his aspect 
and recalled the old days when a bow passed 
for something more than a perfunctory greet- 
ing, he moved sternly down the walk and out 


A Return. 


135 


through the stiff old gate into the dusty high- 
road. 

Half a dozen or more of the most eager wit- 
nesses of this extraordinary scene followed 
him down the hill and into town, anxious no 
doubt to set the town ablaze with news of 
Ephraim Earle’s return and of his identity 
with the newly arrived hermit at Hadley’s 
cave. 


X. 


AN INCREDIBLE OCCURRENCE. 

D r. IZARD had of late presented a more 
cheerful appearance. His step was lighter 
and his face less generally downcast. He 
even was seen to smile one morning at the 
antics of some children, an unprecedented 
thing in his history, one would think, from the 
astonishment it caused among the gOssips. 

He had been called away several times dur- 
ing the month and the card with the word 
“ absent ” on it was very often to be seen 
hanging beside his door. People grew tired 
of this, though they knew it meant fame and 
money to the doctor, and the newly-fledged 
physician from Boston, whose offlce was at 
the other end of the town, prospered in conse- 
quence. But Dr. Izard only seemed relieved 
at this and came and went, as I have said, 

136 


A Return. 


137 

with a less gloomy if not positively brightened 
countenance. 

He had always kept for himself one solitary 
place of resort in the village. Without this 
refuge life would often have been insupport- 
able to him. It was — strange to say, for the 
Izards had always been aristocratic — the hum- 
ble house of the village shoemaker, a simple 
but highly respected man who with his aged 
wife had been, from sheer worth of character, 
a decided factor in town for the last twenty- 
five years. 

The little house in which he lived and plied 
his useful trade stood on the hill-side a few 
yards above the Fisher cottage, and it was in 
his frequent visits to this spot that Dr. Izard 
had seen so much of Polly. The window in 
which he usually sat overlooked the Fisher 
garden, and as his visits had extended over 
years he had ample opportunity for observing 
her growing beauty from the time she was a 
curly-headed imp of four to the day she faced 
the world a gay-hearted damsel of eighteen. 

It had been a matter of some mystery in the 
past why Dr. Izard, with his trained mind and 


13 ^ 


Doctor Izard. 


refined tastes, affected this humble home and 
sought with such assiduity the companionship 
of this worthy but by no means cultured couple. 
But this, together with other old wonders, had 
long lost its hold upon public attention, no 
one thinking of inquiring any longer into the 
cause of a habit that had become so fixed it 
was regarded as part of the village’s history. 
One effect, however, remained. No one thought 
of entering the shoemaker’s shop while Dr. 
Izard sat there. It would have been thought 
an intrusion by both guest and host. 

Mr. and Mrs. Fanning, who had themselves 
long ceased to wonder at his preference for 
their society, invariably stopped their work 
when he entered and greeted him with the 
same words of welcome they had used fourteen 
years before when he had unexpectedly taken a 
seat in the shop without having been summoned 
for professional purposes. After which neces- 
sary ceremony they turned again to their sev- 
eral labors and the doctor sat down in his 
especial seat, which, as I have said, was in one 
of the windows, and lapsed into the silence he 
invariably maintained for half his stay. The 


A Retunu 


139 


time chosen for his visit was usually at night- 
fall, and whether it was that the charms of 
nature were unusually attractive to him at that 
hour, or whether something or somebody in 
the adjoining gardens secretly interested him, 
he invariably turned his eyes outward, with an 
expression that touched the heart of the old 
lady who watched him and caused many a 
glance of secret intelligence to pass between 
her and her equally concerned husband. 

Not till it was quite dark and the lights had 
been lit in the shop, would the doctor turn 
about — often with a sigh too unconscious to 
be repressed — and face again the humble cou- 
ple. But when he did so, it was to charm them 
with the most cordial and delightful conver- 
sation. There was even sparkle in it, but it 
was only for this aged pair of workers, whose 
wit was sufficient for appreciation, and whose 
hearts responded to every effort made to inter- 
est them by their much revered visitor. After 
a quarter of an hour of this hearty interchange 
of neighborly comment, he would leave the 
house, to come again a few evenings later. 

But one evening there was a break in the 


140 


Doctor hard. 


usual order of things. The doctor was sitting, 
as he had sat a hundred times before, in his 
chair by the window, and Mr. Fanning was 
hammering away at his bench and Mrs. Fan- 
ning reading the Watchman, when there came 
a sound of vofces from the front and the door 
burst open to the loud cry of — 

'‘O Mrs. Fanning, Mrs. Fanning! Such 
news ! Ephraim Earle has come back 1 Eph- 
raim Earle, whom we all thought dead ten 
years ago 1 ” 

Mrs. Fanning, who with all her virtues dearly 
loved a bit of gossip, and who knew, or thought 
she did, everything that was going on in town, 
ran without once looking round her to the door, 
and Mr. Fanning, who could not but feel star- 
tled also by an event so unexpected and so 
long looked upon as impossible, started to fol- 
low her, when something made him look back 
at the doctor. The sight that met his eyes 
stunned him, and caused him to pause trembling 
where he was. In all the years he had known 
Dr. Izard he had never seen him look as he 
did at that moment. Was it surprise that 
affected him, or was it fear, or some other in- 


A Return. 


141 

comprehensible emotion ? The good old man 
could not tell ; but he wished the doctor would 
speak. At last the doctor did, and the hollow 
tones he used made the aged shoemaker recoil. 

‘‘What is that? What are they talking 
about ? They mentioned a name ? Whose 
name ? Not Polly’s father’s ? ” 

'‘Yes,” faltered his startled companion. 

“ Ephraim Earle ; they say he has come back. 
Shall I go and see ? ” 

The doctor nodded ; it seemed as if he had 
no words at his command, and the shoemaker, 
glad to be released, hastened hobbling from ^ 
the room. As his half bent figure vanished, 
the doctor, as if released from a spell, looked 
about, shuddered, grasped the table nearest to 
him for support, and then burst into a laugh 
so strange, so discordant, and yet so thrilling 
with emotion, that had not a dozen men and 
women been all talking together in the hall it 
would have been heard and commented on. 
As it was he was left alone, and it was not till 
several minutes had elapsed that Mrs. Fanning 
came rushing in, followed by her dazed and 
somewhat awestruck husband. 


142 


Doctor Izard, 


“ O doctor, it is true ! It is true ! I have 
just seen him ; he is standing at the Fisher s 
corner. Polly is up at the house — You know 
she was to open it to-day. They say she is more 
frightened than pleased, and who can wonder ? 
He looks like a weather-beaten tramp ! ” 

“No, no,” shouted some one from the room 
beyond, “ like a gentleman who has been sick 
and who has had lots of trouble besides.” 

“ Come and see him ! ” called out a shrill 
voice, over Mrs. Fanning’s shoulder. “You 
used to know him, doctor. Come and see 
Ephraim Earle.” 

The doctor, with a curl of his lips, looked 
up and met the excited eyes that were contem- 
plating him, and slowly remarked : 

“Your wits have certainly all gone wool- 
gathering. I don’t believe that Ephraim Earle 
has returned. Some one has been playing a 
trick upon you.” 

“Then it’s the ghost of Ephraim Earle if 
it’s not himself,” insisted the other, as the 
whole group, losing their awe of the doctor 
in the interest and growing excitement of the 
moment, came crowding into the shop. 


A Return. 


H3 


“ And a very vigorous ghost ! He is bound 
to have his rights ; that you can see.” 

“ But he won’t annoy his daughter. Did 
you hear what he said to the child, up there by 
the lilac bushes ? ” And then they all chat- 
tered, each striving to give his or her own 
views of the situation, till a sudden vigorous 
“ Hush ! ” brought them all to an abrupt stand- 
still and set them staring at the doctor with 
wide-open eyes and mouths. 

''You are all acting like children!” pro- 
tested that gentleman, with his white face raised 
and his eyes burning fiercely upon them. " I 
say that man is an impostor 1 Why should 
Ephraim Earle come back ? ” 

" And why should n’t he ? ” asked another. 

" Answer us that. Dr. Izard. Why should n’t 
the man come back ? ” 

"True, true! Has n’t he a daughter 
here ? ” 

" With money of her own. Just the same 
amount as he once ran off with.” 

" I tell you again to be quiet.” It was still 
the doctor who was talking. "If you are daft 
yourselves, do not try to make other people 


144 


Doctor Izard. 


so ! Where is this fellow ? I will soon show 
you he is not the man you take him to be.” 

“ I don’t know how you will do it,” objected 
one, as the group fell back before the doctor’s 
advancing figure. ‘'He’s as like him as one 
pea is like another, and he remembers all of us 
and even chattered with Mother Jessup about 
her famous worsted socks.” 

“Fools!” came from beneath the doctor’s 
set lips as he strode from the door and passed 
rapidly into the highway. “ Here, you I” he 
cried, accosting the man who was the centre 
of a group some rods away, “ come up here 1 
I want to speak to you.” 


XL 


FACE TO FACE. 



HE stranger, thus hailed, turned as the 


* doctor’s voice rang down the road, and 
acknowledging the somewhat rough summons 
with a bow of mock affability, stepped oblig- 
ingly up the hill. The neighbors who had 
flocked into the street to watch the meeting, 
saw the doctor’s lip curl as the wretched figure 
advanced. This man, Ephraim Earle ? Why 
had he called these credulous creatures fools ? 
They were simply madmen. But in another 
moment his countenance changed. The miser- 
able fellow had paused and was standing a few 
feet off with what could not be called other 
than a look of old comradeship. He spoke 
first also and with quite a hearty ring to his 
naturally strident voice. 

'‘Well, Oswald, old boy, this is a pleasure ! 


145 


146 


Doctor Izard, 


Now don’t say you don’t remember me — ” 
for the doctor had started back with an irre- 
pressible gesture of disgust that to some eyes 
was not without its element of confusion, “ I 
know I am changed, but no more so than you 
are, if you have led a more respectable life 
than 1.” 

“ Scoundrel ! ” leaped from Dr. Izard’s white 
lips. “ How dare you address me as if we 
were, or ever had been, friends ! You are a 
brazen adventurer, and I — ” 

“ And you are the perfectly irreproachable 
physician with a well-earned fame, and a past 
as free from shadow as — well, as your face is 
free from surprise at this unexpected return of 
one you probably thought dead.” 

Confounded by this audacity and moved by 
many inner and conflicting emotions, Dr. Izard 
first flushed, then stood very still, surveying 
the man with a silent passion which many there 
thought to be too emphatic a return for what 
sounded to them like nothing more than an ill- 
judged pleasantry. Then he spoke, quietly, 
but with a sort of gasp, odd to hear in his 
usually even and melodious voice. 


A Return. 


147 


“ I do not know you. Whatever you may 
call yourself, you are a stranger to me, and no 
stranger has a right to address me with Im- 
pertinence. What do you call yourself ? ” he 
suddenly demanded, advancing a step and dart- 
ing his gaze into the other’s eyes with a deter- 
mination that would have abashed most men 
whether they were all they proclaimed them- 
selves to be or not. 

A playful sneer, a look in which good-natured 
forbearance still struggled uppermost, were all 
that he got from this man. 

“So you are determined not to recognize 
Ephraim Earle,” cried the stranger. “You 
must have good reasons for it, Oswald Izard ; 
reasons which it would not be wise perhaps for 
one to inquire into too curiously.” 

It was an attack for which the doctor was not 
fully prepared. He faltered for an instant and 
his cheek grew livid, but he almost immediately 
recovered himself, and with even more than 
his former dignity, answered shortly : 

“Now you are more than impertinent, you 
are insolent. I do not need to have secret 
reasons for repudiating any claims you may 


148 


Doctor Izard, 


make to being Polly Earle’s father. Your face 
denies the identity you usurp. You have not 
a trait of the man you call yourself. Your 
eyes ” 

Oh, do not malign my eyes,” laughed the 
stranger. “ They are faded I know and one 
lid has got a way of drooping of late years, 
which has greatly altered my expression. But 
they are the same eyes, doctor, that watched 
with you beside the bed of Huldah Earle and 
if they fail to meet you with just the same 
mixture of trembling hope and fear as they 
did then it is because youthful passions die 
out with the years and I no longer greatly 
care for any verdict you may have to give.” 

A frown hard to fathom corrugated the doc- 
tor’s forehead and he continued to survey in 
silence the bold face that declined to blench 
before him. 

“ So you persist — ” he remarked at length. 
“ Then you are a villain as well as an impostor.” 

“ Villain or impostor, I am at least Ephraim 
Earle,” asserted the other ; adding as he noted 
the doctor’s fingers tighten on the slight stick 
he carried, “ Oh, you need not show your hatred 


A Return. 


149 


quite so plainly, Dr. Izard. I do not hate you, 
whatever cause I may have to do so. Have I 
not said that my old passions are dried up, and 
even signified that my coming back was but a 
whim ? Curraghven-hoodah, Oswald, you weary 
me with your egotism. Let us shake hands 
and- be comrades once more.” 

The audacity, the superiority even, with 
which these words were said, together with the 
cabalistic phrase he used — a phrase which Dr. 
Izard was ready to swear even at that moment 
of shock and confusion, was one known only 
to himself and Polly’s father, — had such an ef- 
fect upon him that he reeled and surveyed the 
speaker with something of superstitious fear 
and horror. But at the malicious gleam which 
this momentary weakness called up in the eye 
of his antagonist, he again regained his self- 
command, and stepping firmly up to him, he 
vociferated with stern emphasis : 

“ I repeat that you are an impostor. \ do not 
know you, nor do I know your name. You 
say you are Ephraim Earle, but that is a lie. 
I knew that man too well to be deceived by 
you. You have neither his eyes, his mouth, 


Doctoi'’ Izard, 


150 

nor his voice, I will say nothing of his man- 
ners.” 

“ Oh,” spoke up a voice from behind, “ he 
looks like Ephraim Earle. You cannot say he 
does not look like Ephriam Earle.” 

The doctor turned sharply, but his antago- 
nist, who neither seemed to ask nor need the 
support of any one or anything but his own 
audacity, responded with a mocking leer : 

“No matter what I look like. He says he 
cannot be deceived by my eyes, my mouth, 
or my voice. That is good. That sounds 
like a man who is sure of himself. But 
friends — ” Here his voice rose and the men- 
ace which he had hitherto held in abeyance 
became visible in his sharpened glance — “he 
can be deceived by his own prejudices. Dr. 
Izard does not want to know me because he 
was Huldah Earle’s attending physician, and 
her death, as you all know, was very sudden 
and very pemliar." 

Venomous as the insinuation was, it was a 
master-stroke and won for its audacious author 
the cause for which he had been battling. The 
doctor, who had worked himself up into a white 


A Return, 


15T 

heat, flushed as if a blood-vessel was about to 
burst in his brain, and drawing back, stepped 
slowly from before the other’s steady and 
openly triumphant gaze. Not till he reached 
the outskirts of the crowd, did he recover 
himself, and then he halted only long enough 
to cry to the jostling and confused crowd he 
had just left : 

“ He looks like a tramp and he talks like a 
villain. Be careful what credit you give him, 
and above all, look after Polly Earle^ 


XII. 


AT HOME. 

I T was now nearing eight o’clock, and as Dr. 

Izard strode on through the village streets, 
seeing no one and hearing no one, though 
more than one person respectfully accosted 
him, the twilight deepened so rapidly that it 
was quite dark when he passed the church and 
turned up the highroad to his own house. 

It was dark and it was chilly, else why should 
so strong a man as he shiver ? So dark that 
the monuments over the wall were hardly to 
be discerned, and he had to fumble for the 
gate he usually found without trouble. Yet 
when his hand finally fell upon it and he me- 
chanically lifted the latch he did not pass 
through at once but lingered, almost with a 
coward’s hesitation, finding difficulty, as it 
seemed, in traversing the dismal path before 


152 


A Return. 


153 


him to the no less dismal door beyond and the 
solitude that there awaited him. 

But he passed the gate at last, and groped 
his way along the path towards his home, 
though with lingering footsteps and frequent 
pauses. Dread was in his every movement, 
and when he stopped it was to clutch the wall 
at his side with one hand and to push the other 
out before him as though to ward off some 
threatening danger, or avert some expected 
advance. In this attitude he would become 
rigidly still, and several minutes would 
elapse before he stumbled on again. Finally 
he reached his door, and unlocking it with 
difficulty threw himself into the house, shud- 
dering and uttering an involuntary cry as a 
spray of the swaying vine clung to him. 

Ashamed of his weakness, for he presently 
saw what had caught him by the arm, he drew 
a deep breath, and tried to shut the door. But 
it would not close. Some obstruction, a trivial 
one no doubt, had interposed to stop it, and 
he being in an excited state pushed at it with 
looks of horror, till his strength conquered and 
he both shut and locked the door. 


154 


Doctor hard. 


H e was trembling all over when he had ac- 
complished this, and groping for a chair he 
sat down in it, panting. But no sooner had 
he taken his seat than the dim panes of the 
window struck his sight, and bounding to his 
feet he drew down the shade as if he would 
shut out the whole world from his view, and 
the burying-yard first of all. 

Quite isolated now and in utter darkness, 
he stood for a few minutes deeply breathing 
and cursing his own fears and pusillanimity. 
Then he struck a light, and calmed by the 
sight of the familiar interior, sat down at his 
desk and tried to think. But though he was a 
man of great intellectual powers, he seemed to 
find it difficult to fix his thoughts or even to 
remain quiet. Involuntary shudders shook his 
frame, and from time to time his eye glanced 
fearfully towards the door as if he dreaded to 
see it open and admit some ghostly visitor. 

Suddenly he leaped to his feet, went to a 
mirror and surveyed himself. Evidently the 
result was not encouraging for he uttered an 
exclamation of dismay and coming back to the 
desk, took up a book and tried to read. But 


A Return, 


155 


the attempt was futile.. With a low cry he flung 
the book aside, and rising to his feet began to 
talk, uttering low and fearful words from which 
he seemed himself to recoil without possessing 
the power of stopping them. The name of 
Ephraim Earle mingled often with these words, 
and always with that new short laugh of his 
so horrible to hear. And once he spoke 
another name, but it was said so softly that 
only from the tears which gushed impetuously 
from his eyes, could it be seen that it stirred 
the deepest chords of his nature. 

The clock, which lagged sorely that night, 
struck eleven at last, and the sound seemed to 
rouse him, for he glanced toward his bed. But 
it was only to cry “ Impossible ! ” and to cast 
a hunted look about the room which seemed 
like a prison to him. 

At length he grasped the green door and 
began to pull at its hasps and fastenings. 
Careless of the result of these efforts he shook 
a small heathen god from its pedestal so that 
it fell rattling to the floor and lay in minute 
pieces at his feet. But he did not heed. Reck- 
lessly he pulled open the door, recklessly he 


56 


Doctor Izard, 


passed into the space beyond. But once out of 
the room, once in another atmosphere than 
that peopled by his imagination, he seemed to 
grow calmer, and after a short survey of the 
narrow hall in which he found himself and a 
glance up the tiny, spiral staircase rising at his 
right, he stepped back into the office and took 
up the lamp. Carrying it with him up the nar- 
row staircase he set it down in the hall above, 
and without looking to right or left, almost 
without noting the desolation of those mid- 
night halls, he began pacing the floor back and 
forth with a restless, uneven tread, far removed 
from his usual slow and dignified gait. 

At early morning he was still pacing there. 


XIII. 


A TEST. 

“ Clarke, wait : there is the doctor now.” 

It was Polly who was speaking. She 
had come as far as the church in her search 
after Dr. Izard and had just seen him issuing 
from his own gate. 

“ He has a bag in his hand ; he is going on 
one of his journeys.” 

“ No, no,” she protested, “ I cannot have 
it.” And bounding forward she intercepted 
the doctor, just as he was about to step into 
his buggy. “ O doctor, you are not going 
away ; you are not going to leave me with this 
dreadful trouble; don’t, don’t, I pray!” The 
doctor, who in his abstraction had not noted 
her approach, started at the sound of her voice, 
and turning showed her a very haggard face. 

“Why,” she cried, stepping back, “you are 
ill yourself.” 


57 


Doctor Izard, 


158 

“ No,” he answered shortly, drawing himself 
up in his old reserved manner. “ I had but 
little sleep last night, but I am not ill. What 
do you want, Polly?” 

“ O don’t you know what I want ? You, of 
all the town, have said he was an impostor ! 
To you then I come as to my only hope ; speak, 
speak, is he not my father ? ” 

The doctor with a side glance at Clarke, 
who had remained in the background, drew 
the girl’s hand within his arm and led her a few 
steps away. But it seemed an involuntary 
movement on his part, for he presently brought 
her back within easy earshot of her lover. 

“ He does not look to me like Ephraim 
Earle, ”he was saying. “ He has not his eyes, 
nor does his voice sound familiar. I do not 
see why any one acknowledges him.” 

“ But they can’t help it. He knows every- 
body, and everything. I — I thought you had 
some good reason. Dr. Izard, something that 
would make it easy for me to deny his claims.” 

“ Y ou — ” The doctor’s sleepless night seemed 
to have had a strange effect upon him, for he 
stammered in speaking, he who was always so 


A Return. 


159 


cold and precise. “ You thought — ” he began, 
but presently broke into that new, strange 
laugh of his, and urging Polly towards her 
lover, he addressed his questions to the 
latter. “ Does this man,” he asked, “ make 
a serious claim upon the Earle name and its 
rights ? ” 

Clarke, who was always sensible when in Dr. 
Izard’s presence of something intangible but 
positive acting like a barrier between them 
and yet who strangely revered the doctor, 
summoned up his courage and responded with 
the respect he really felt. 

“Yes,” said he ; but with a certain reserve, 
“ that is our best reason perhaps for believing 
him. He promises not to molest Polly, nor to 
make any demands upon her until she herself 
recognizes her duty.” 

The frown which darkened the doctor s face 
deepened. 

“ He is a deep one, then,” said he, and stood 
for a moment silent. 

“ If he is an impostor, yes,” assented Clarke ; 
“ but Lawyer Crouse, who talked with him half 
an hour last night, accepted him at once, and 


i6o 


Doctor Izard, 


so did Mr. Sutherland.” Mr. Sutherland was 
the Baptist minister. 

“ The fools ! ” muttered the doctor, as much 
in anger as amazement ; “has the whole town 
reached its dotage ? ” 

Clarke, who seemed surprised at the doctor s 
vehemence, quietly remarked : 

“ You were Mr. Earle’s best friend. If you 
say that this man is not he, there would of 
course be many to listen to you.” 

But the doctor, resuming his accustomed 
expression, refused an answer to this sugges- 
tion, at which Polly’s face grew very pale, and 
she grasped his arm imploringly, saying as she 
did so : 

“ I cannot bear this uncertainty, I cannot 
bear to think there is any question about this 
matter. If he is my father, I owe him every- 
thing ; if he is not ” 

“ Polly,” — The doctor spoke coldly but not 
unkindly, “ marry Clarke, go with him to Cleve- 
land where he has the promise of a fine posi- 
tion, and leave this arrant pretender to settle 
his rights himself. He will not urge them long 
when he finds the money gone for which he is 
striving.” 


A Return, 


i6i 


'' You bid me do that ? Then you know he 
is not my father.” 

But the doctor instead of answering with 
the vigorous yes she had expected, looked aside 
and carelessly murmured : 

“ I have said that I saw no likeness in him 
to the man I once knew. Of course my judg- 
ment was hurried, our interview was short and 
I was laboring under the shock of his appear- 
ance. But if everybody else in town recog- 
nizes him as Ephraim Earle, I must needs think 
my opinion was warped by my surprise and the 
indignation I felt at what I considered a gross 
piece of presumption.” 

“ Then you do not know,” quoth poor Polly, 
her head sinking lower and lower on her breast. 

“No,” cried the doctor, turning shortly at 
the word and advancing once more toward the 
buggy. 

But at this move she sprang forward and 
sought again to detain him. 

“ But you will not go and leave me in this 
dreadful uncertainty,” she pleaded. “You will 
stay and have another talk with this man and 
satisfy yourself and me that he is indeed my 
father.” 


i 62 


Doctor Izard, 


But the stern line into which the doctors 
lip settled, assured her that in this regard he 
was not to be moved ; and frightened, over- 
awed by the prospect before her, she turned 
to Clarke and cried : 

“Take me home, take me back to your 
mother ; she is the only person who can give 
me any comfort.” 

The doctor who was slowly proceeding to 
his horse’s head, looked back. 

“ Then you don’t like my advice,” he smiled. 

She stared, remembered what he had said 
and answered indignantly : 

“ If this poor, wretched, wicked-eyed man 
is my father — and I should never have doubted 
it if you had not declared him an impostor 
before all the town people — then I would be a 
coward to desert him and seek my happiness 
in a place where he could not follow me.” 

“ Even if he is as wicked as his looks 
indicate ? ” 

“Yes, yes, even if he is wicked. Who can 
say what caused that wickedness.” 

The doctor, fumbling with the halter, stopped 
and seemed to muse. 


A Return, 163 

Did you ever see your father s picture 
hanging in the old cottage ? ” 

“Yes, I saw it yesterday.” 

“ Did that have a wicked look ? ” 

“ I do not think it had a good look.” This 
was said very low but it .made the doctor 
start. 

“ No ? ” he exclaimed. 

“ It made me feel a little unpleasant, as if 
something I could neither understand nor sym- 
pathize with had met me in 'my father s smile. 
It made him more remote, and prepared me for 
the heartless figure of the man who in the next 
few minutes claimed me as his daughter. ” 

“ Strange !” issued from the doctor’s lips ; 
and his face, which had been hard to read from 
the first, became more and more inscrutable. 

“ My mother, who is as wise as she is gentle, 
advises Polly to give up the cottage to her 
father ; but not to live in it with him till his 
character is better understood and his inten- 
tions made manifest.” 

“ Then your mother sees this man in the 
same light as others do ? ” 

“ She certainly considers him to be Ephraim 


164 


Doctor Izard, 


Earle. It is not natural for her to think other- 
wise under the circumstances.” 

“ I do indeed stand alone,” quoth the doctor. 

“ When I told her,” pursued Clarke, “ what 
you had said, she looked amazed but she said 
nothing to show that she had changed her 
opinion. I do not think any one was really 
affected by your words.” 

Something in the tone in which this was said 
showed where Clarke himself stood. A bitter 
smile crossed the doctor’s lip, and he seemed 
more than ever anxious to be gone. 

“I shall be away,” he said, “several days. 
When I come back I hope to see this thing 
settled.” 

“ I hate him,” burst from Polly’s lips. “ I am 
terrified at my thoughts of him, but in my inner 
consciousness I know him to be my father, and 
I shall try and do my duty by him ; shall I not, 
Clarke?” 

Clarke, who had felt himself almost un- 
necessary in this scene, grasped at the oppor- 
tunity which this appeal gave him and took 
her tenderly by the arm. 


A Return. 165 

“ We will try and do our duty,” he corrected, 
“praying Providence to help us.” 

And the doctor, with a glance at them both, 
sprang into his buggy and was driving off when 
he rose and flung back at Polly this final word 
of paternal advice : 

“He is the claimant; you are the one in 
possession. Let him prove himself to be the 
man he calls himself.” 

Clarke, dropping Polly’s arm, sprang after 
the doctor. 

“Wait! one moment,” he cried. “What 
do you call proof? You who knew him so 
well in the past, tell us how to make sure that 
his pretensions are not false.” 

The doctor, drawing up his horse, paused 
for a moment in deep thought. 

“ Ask him,” he finally said, “ to show you 
the medal given him by the French govern- 
ment. As* it has never been found in his 
house, and as it was useless to raise money 
upon, he should, if he is Ephraim Earle, be 
able to produce it. Till he does, I advise you 
. to cherish doubts in his regard, and above all 


Doctor Izard, 


1 66 

to keep that innocent and enthusiastic young 
girl out of his clutches.” 

And with a smile which would have taken 
more than Clarke’s experience with the world 
to understand, much less to explain, the doctor 
whipped up his horse and disappeared down 
the road towards the station. 


XIV. 


GRACE. 



HE doctor did not return in a few days 


nor in a few weeks. Two months 


passed before his gate creaked on its hinges 
and the word ran through the town, “ Dr. 
Izard is back!” 

He arrived in Hamilton at nightfall, and 
proceeded at once to his office. There was in 
his manner none of the hesitation shown at his 
last entrance there, and when by chance he 
passed the mirror in his quick movements 
about the room he was pleased himself to note 
the calmness of his features, and the quiet air 
of dignified reserve once more pervading his 
whole appearance. 

“ I have fought the battle,” he quietly com- 
mented to himself ; '‘and now to face the new 
order of things 1 ” 


167 


Doctor Izard, 


1 68 

He looked about the room, put a few matters 
in order, and then stepped out into the green 
space before his door. Glancing right and left 
and seeing nobody in the road or in the fields 
beyond the cemetery, he walked straight to 
the monument of Polly’s mother and sternly, 
determinately surveyed it. Then he glanced 
down at the grave it shaded, and detecting a 
stray leaf lying on its turf, he picked it up and 
cast it aside, with a suggestion of that strange 
smile which had lately so frequently altered his 
handsome features. After which he roamed 
through the churchyard, coming back to his 
door by another path. The chill of early Sep- 
tember had touched many of the trees about, 
and there was something like dreariness in the 
landscape. But he did not appear to notice 
this, and entered in and sat down at his table 
with his former look of concentration and 
purpose. 

Evening came and with it several patients ; 
some from need, some from curiosity. To 
both kinds he listened with equal calmness, 
prescribing for their real or fancied complaints 
and seeing them at once to the door. At ten 


A Return, 


169 


o’clock even these failed to put in an appear- 
ance, and being tired, he was about to draw 
his shade and lock his door when there came 
a low knock at the latter of so timid and so 
hesitating a character that his countenance 
changed and he waited for another knock 
before uttering his well known sharp summons 
to enter. 

It came after a moment’s delay, and from 
some impulse difficult for himself to explain, 
he proceeded to the door, and hastily opened 
it. A tall, heavily veiled figure, clad in widow’s 
weeds, stood before him, at sight of which he 
started back, hardly believing his eyes. 

“ Grace ! ” he ejaculated ; “ Grace ! ” and 
held out his arms with an involuntary move- 
ment of which he seemed next moment 
ashamed, for with a sudden change of manner 
he became on the instant ceremonious, and 
welcoming in his visitor with a low bow, he 
pushed forward a chair, with mechanical polite- 
ness, and stammered with intense emotion : 

“You are ill ! Or your son ! Some trouble 
threatens you or you would not be here.” 

“ My son is well, and I — I am as well as 


170 


Doctor Izard, 


usual,” answered the advancing lady, taking 
the chair he offered her, though not without 
some hesitation. Clarke is with the horses 
in front and I have ventured — at this late hour 
— to visit you, because I knew you would never 
come to me, even if I sent for you, Oswald.” 

The tone, the attitude, the whole aspect of 
the sweet yet dignified woman before him, 
seemed to awaken an almost uncontrollable 
emotion in the doctor. He leaned toward her 
and said in tones which seemed to have a cor- 
responding effect upon her: “You mistake, 
Grace. One word from you would have 
brought me at any time ; that is, if I could 
have been of any service to you. I have never 
ceased to love you — ” He staggered back but 
quickly recovered himself — “and never shall.” 

“ I do not understand you,” protested Mrs. 
Unwin, half rising. “ I did not come — I did 
not expect — ” her agitation prevented her from 
proceeding. 

“ I do not understand myself ! ” exclaimed 
he, walking a step away. “ I never thought 
to speak such words to you again. Forgive 
me, Grace ; you have a world of wrong to par- 


A Return, 


171 

don in me ; add another mark of forbearance 
to your list and make me more than ever your 
debtor.” She drooped her head and sitting 
down again seemed to be endeavoring to re- 
gain her self-possession. 

It was for Clarke,” she murmured, “ that 
I came.” 

I might have known it,” cried the doctor. 

He would not speak for himself, and Polly, 
the darling child, has become so dazed by the 
experiences of these last two months that she 
no longer knows her duty. Besides, she seems 
afraid to speak to you again says that you 
frighten her, and that you no longer love her.” 

“ I never have loved her,” he muttered, but 
so low the words were not carried to the other s 
ears. 

“ Have you learned in your absence what 
has taken place here in Hamilton ? ” she asked. 

Rousing himself, for his thoughts were evi- 
dently not on the subject she advanced, he 
took a seat near her and composed himself 
to listen, but meeting her soft eyes shining 
through the heavy crape she wore, he said 
with a slight appealing gesture : 


172 


Doctor hard. 


“ Let me see your face, Grace, before I at- 
tempt to answer. I have not dared to look 
upon it for fourteen years, but now, with some 
of the barriers down which held us inexorably 
apart, I may surely be given the joy of seeing 
your features once more, even if they show 
nothing but distrust and animosity toward 
me.” 

She hesitated, and his face grew pale with 
the struggle of his feelings, then her slim white 
hand went up and almost before he could 
realize it, they sat face to face. 

“O Grace,” he murmured; “the same ! al- 
ways the same ; the one woman in all the 
world to me ! But I will not distress you. 
Other griefs lie nearer your heart than any I 
could hope to summon up, and I do not know 
as I would have it otherwise if I could. Pro- 
ceed with your questions. They were in ref- 
erence to Clarke, I believe.” 

“No, I only asked if you had kept yourself 
acquainted with what has been going on in 
Hamilton since you left. Did you know that 
Ephraim Earle was living again in the old 
house, and that Polly is rapidly losing her 


A Return. 


173 

fortune owing to his insatiable demands for 
money ? ” 

“ No ! ” He sprang to his feet and his whole 
attitude showed distress and anger. “ I told 
her to make the fellow give her a proof, an 
unmistakable proof, that he was indeed the 
brilliant inventor of whose fame we have all 
been proud.” 

And he furnished it, Oswald. You mean 
the medal which he received from France, do 
you not ? Well, he had it among his treasures 
in the cave, and he showed it to her one day. 
It was the one thing, he declared, from which 
he had never parted in all his adventurous 
career.” 

''You are dreaming! he never had that! 
Could not have had that I It was some de- 
ception he practised upon you 1 ” exclaimed 
the doctor, aghast and trembling. 

But she shook her lovely head, none the less 
beautiful because her locks were becoming 
silvered on the forehead, and answered : " It 
was the very medal we saw in our youth, with 
the French arms and inscription upon it. Dr. 
Sutherland examined it, and Mr. Crouse says 


174 


Doctor Izard. 


he remembers it well. Besides it had his name 
engraved upon it and the year.” 

The doctor, to whom her words seemed to 
come in a sort of nightmare, sank into his 
chair and stared upon her with such horror 
that she would have recoiled from him in dis- 
may had he been any other man than Oswald 
Izard, so long loved and so long and passion- 
ately borne with, notwithstanding his myste- 
rious words and startling inconsistencies of 
conduct. 

You do not know why this surprises me,” 
he exclaimed, and hung his head. “ I was 
so sure,” he added below his breath, “ that 
this was some impostor, and not Ephraim 
Earle.” 

“ I know,” she proceeded, after a moment, as 
soon, indeed, as she thought he could under- 
stand her words, “ that you did not credit his 
claims and refused to recognize him as Polly’s 
father. But I had no idea you felt so deeply 
on the subject or I might have written to you 
long ago. You have some reasons for your 
doubts, Oswald ; for I see that your convic- 
tions are not changed by this discovery. What 


A Return, 


175 


is it ? I am ready to listen if no one else is, for 
he is blighting Polly’s life and at the same 
time shattering my son’s hopes.” 

“ I said — I swore to Polly that I had no rea- 
son,” he declared, gloomily dropping his eyes 
and assuming at once the defensive. 

But she with infinite tact and a smile he 
could not but meet, answered softly : “ I know 
that too ; but I am better acquainted with you 
than she is, and I am confident that you have 
had some cause for keeping the truth from 
Polly, which will not apply to me. Is there 
not something connected with those old days 
— something, perhaps, known only to you, 
which would explain your horror of this man’s 
pretensions and help her possibly out of her 
dilemma ? Are you afraid to confide it to me, 
when perhaps in doing so you would make two 
innocent ones happy ? ” 

“ I cannot talk about it,” he replied with 
almost fierce emphasis. “ Ephraim Earle and 
I — ” He started, caught her by the arm and 
turned his white face toward the door. 
“ Hush ! ” he whispered, and stooped his ear to 
listen. She watched him with terror and 


Doctor Izard, 


1 76 

amazement, but he soon settled back, and wav- 
ing his hand remarked quietly : 

“ The boughs are losing their leaves and the 
vines sometimes tap against the windows like 
human fingers. You were saying ” 

“ You were saying that Ephraim Earle and 
you ” 

But his blank looks showed that he had 
neither understood nor followed her. “Were 
you not good friends ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, yes, oh, yes,” he answered hastily ; 
“too good friends forme to be mistaken now.” 

“ Then it is from his looks alone that you 
conclude him to be an impostor?” 

The doctor did not respond, and she, seem- 
ing quite helpless to move, sat for a minute 
silently contemplating his averted face. 

“ I know you did not talk with him long. 
Nor have I attempted to do so, yet in spite of 
everybody’s opinion but your own I have come 
to the same conclusion as yourself, that he is 
not Polly’s father.” 

The doctor’s lips moved, but no words issued 
from them. 

“ That is why I press the matter ; that 


A Return, 


m 


is why I am here to pray and entreat you 
to save Polly and to save my son. Prove this 
man a villainy and force him to loose his hold 
upon the Earle estate before Polly’s money is 
all gone ! ” 

“Is it then a question of money?” asked 
the doctor. “ Two months have passed and 
you are afraid that he will dispose of twenty 
thousand dollars ! ” 

“ He has already disposed of ten of them 
and the rest ” 

“ Disposed of ten thousand dollars ! ” 

“Yes, for old gambling debts, pressing mat- 
ters which Polly could not let stand without 
shame.” 

The wretch ! ” leapt from the doctor’s lips. 
“ Was there no one to advise her, to forbid ” 

“You were gone and Clarke was afraid of 
seeming mercenary. I think the girl’s secret 
terror of her father and her lack of filial affec- 
tion drove her to yield so readily to his de- 
mands for money.” 

An inarticulate word was the doctor’s sole 
reply. 

“ And that is not the whole, Clarke’s career 
12 


178 


Doctor hard. 


is endangered and the prospect of his carry- 
ing out his plans almost gone. Mr. Earle — I 
have called him so — does not hesitate to say 
that he must have five thousand dollars more 
by next October. If Polly accedes to this de- 
mand, and I do not think we can influence her 
to refuse him, Clarke will have to forego all 
hopes of becoming a member of the Cleveland 
firm, for he will never take her last five thou- 
sand, even if she urges him to it on her knees.” 

“ It is abominable, unprecedented !” fumed 
the doctor, rising and pacing the room. “ But 
I can do nothing, prove nothing. He has 
been received as Ephraim Earle, and is too 
strongly intrenched in his position for me to 
drive him out.” 

The absolutism with which this was said 
made his words final ; and she slowly rose. 

“ And so I too have failed,” she cried ; but 
seeing his face and noting the yearning look 
with which he regarded her, she summoned up 
her courage afresh and finally said : “ They 
have told me — I have heard — that this man 
made some strange threats to you in parting. 
Is that the reason why you do not like to inter- 


A Return, 


179 

fere or to proclaim more widely your opinion 
of him ? ” 

The doctor smiled, but there was no answer 
in the smile and she went vehemently on : 
“ Such threats, Oswald, are futile. No one less 
sensitive than you would heed them for a mo- 
ment. You are above any one’s aspersion, 
even on an old charge like that.” 

“ Men will believe anything,” he muttered. 

But men will not believe that. Do we 
not all know how faithfully you attended 
Mrs. Earle in her last illness, and how much 
skill you displayed ? I remember it well, if 
the rest of the community do not, and I say 
you need not fear anything this man can 
bring up against you. His influence in town 
does not go so far as that.” 

But the doctor with unrelieved sadness 
answered with decision, “ I cannot make this 
man my enemy ; he has too venomous a 
tongue.” And she watching him knew that 
Polly’s doom was fixed and her son’s also, and 
began slowly to draw down her veil. 

But he, noticing this action, though he had 
seemed to be blind to many others she had 


i8o 


Doctor Izard, 


made, turned upon her with such an entreating 
look that she faltered and let her hand fall in 
deep emotion. 

“ Grace,” he pleaded, “ Grace, I cannot let 
you go without one kindly word to make the 
solitude which must settle upon this room after 
your departure, less unendurable. You distrust 
me.” 

“Does this visit here look like distrust ?” she 
gently asked. 

“ And you hate me ! But ” 

Do I look as if I hated you ? ” she again 
interposed, this time with the look of an angel 
in her sad but beautiful eyes. 

“ Ah, Grace,” he cried, with the passion of 
a dozen years let loose in one uncontrollable 
flood, “ you cannot love me, not after all these 
years. When we parted ” 

“ At whose instigation, Oswald ? ” 

“ At mine, at mine, I know it. Do not re- 
proach me with that, for I could not have 
done differently. — I thought, I dreamed that 
it was with almost as much pain on your side 
as mine. But you married, Grace, married 
very soon.” 


A Return, 


“ Still at whose instigation ? ” 

'' Again at mine. I dared not keep you 
from any comfort which life might have in 
store for you, and the years which you have 
spent in happiness and honor must have 
obliterated some of the traces of that love 
which bound our lives together fifteen years 
ago." 

Oswald, Mr. Unwin was a good husband 
and Clarke has^ always been like an own son 
to me, but " 

“ Oh," interposed the doctor, starting back 
before the beauty of her face,'Mon’t tell me 
that a woman’s heart can, like a man’s, be 
the secret sepulchre of a living passion for 
fifteen years. I could not bear to know 
that ! The struggle which I waged fourteen 
years ago I have not strength to wage now. 
No ! no ! woman of my dreams, of my heart’s 
dearest emotion, loved once, loved now, loved 
always ! tell me anything but that , — tell me 
even that you hate me." 

Her eyes, which had fallen before his, swam 
suddenly with tears and she started as if for 
protection toward the door. 


i 82 


Doctor Izard. 


“ Oh, I must go,” she cried. “ Clarke is wait- 
ing ; it is not wise ; it is not seemly for me to 
be here.” But the doctor, into whom a fiery 
glow had entered, was beside her before she 
could reach the threshold. '‘No, no,” he 
pleaded, “ not till you have uttered one word, 
one whisper of the old story ; one assurance — 
Ah, now I am entreating for the very thing, 
the existence of which, I deprecated a few 
minutes ago ! It shows how unbalanced I 
am. Yes, yes, you can go ; but, Grace, if 
you have ever doubted that I loved you, listen 
to this one confession. Ever since the day 
we parted, necessarily parted, fourteen years 
ago, I have never let a week go by till these 
last few ones during which I have been away 
from Hamilton, that I have not given up two 
nights a week to thinking of you and watching 
you.” 

“ Watching me ! ” 

“Twice a week for fourteen years have I 
sat for an hour in Mrs. Fanning’s west window 
that overlooks your gardens. Thence, unnoted 
by everybody, I have noted you, if by happy 
chance you walked in the garden ; and if you 


A Return. 183 

did not, noted the house that held you and the 
man who sheltered your youth.” 

Oswald,” — she felt impelled to speak, if — 
if you loved me like this, why did you send 
me that cruel letter two days after our engage- 
ment ? Why did you bid me forget you 
and marry some one else, if you had not for- 
gotten me and did not wish me to release you 
in order that you might satisfy your own wishes 
in another direction?” 

Grace, if I could explain myself now I 
could have explained myself then. Fate, 
which is oftenest cruel to the most loving 
and passionate hearts, has denied me the 
privilege of marriage, and when I found it 
out ” 

'‘True, you have never married. Cruel, 
cruel one ! Why did you not let me know 
that you would always live single for my sake ; 
it would have made it possible for me to have 
lived single for yours.” 

The doctor with the love of a lifetime burn- 
ing in his eyes, shook his head at this, and 
answered : “ That would have shown me to be 
a selfish egotist, and I did not want to be 


184 


Doctor Izard, 


other than generous to you. No, Grace, all 
was done for the best ; and this is for the best, 
this greeting and this second parting. The 
love which we have acknowledged to-night 
will be a help and not a hindrance to us both. 
But we will meet again, not very soon, for I 
cannot trust a strength which has yielded so 
completely at your first smile.” 

'' Farewell, then, Oswald,” she murmured. 
“It has taken the sting from my heart to 
know that you did not leave me from choice.” 

And he, striving to speak, broke down, and 
it was she who had to show her strength by 
gently leaving him and finding her own way to 
the door. 

But no sooner had the night blast blowing 
in from the graveyard struck him, than he 
stumbled in haste to the threshold, and draw- 
ing her with a frenzied grasp from the path she 
was blindly taking toward the graves, led her 
from that path to the high road, where Clarke 
was waiting in some anxiety for the end of this 
lengthy interview. As the doctor gave her up 
and saw her taken in charge by her son, he 
said with a thrilling emphasis not soon to be 


A Return. 185 

forgotten by either of the two who listened to 
them : 

Try every means, and be sure you bid Polly 
to try every means, to rid yourselves of the 
bondage of this interloper. If all fails, come 
to me. But do not come till every other hope 
is dead.” 


PART IV. 


A PICKAXE AND A SPADE. 


XV. 


THE SMALL, SLIGHT MAN. 

WO months had passed and the first snow 



i was whitening the streets of Hamilton. 
It was falling thick on Carberry hill, up which 
Clarke Unwin was plodding early one evening 
on a visit to the Earle cottage. 

His errand was one of importance. A crisis 
was approaching in his affairs and he was de- 
termined to settle, once and for all, whether 
poor Polly’s money was to be sacrificed to her 
father’s increasing demands, or whether she 
could safely be allowed to follow her own 
wishes and give five thousand dollars of it to 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 187 

the lover whose future fortunes seemed to de- 
pend upon his possession of this amount. 

Ephraim Earle had told her with something 
like a curse that he should expect from her this 
very sum on the first of the month, but if this 
demand were satisfied then Clarke’s own hopes 
must go, for his friends in the Cleveland works 
were fast becoming impatient, and Mr. Wright 
had written only two days before that if the 
amount demanded from him was not forth- 
coming in a fortnight, they would be obliged to 
listen to the overtures of a certain capitalist 
who was only waiting for Clarke’s withdrawal 
to place his own nephew in the desired place. 

Clarke Unwin had not visited the Earle 
cottage since Ephraim took up his abode in it. 
Polly had refused to go there, and he himself 
felt no call to intrude upon a man who was 
personally disagreeable to him, and whom he 
could not but regard as a tyrant to the sweet 
girl whose life had been all sunshine till this 
man came into it with his preposterous de- 
mands and insatiable desire for money. 

On this day, however, he had received her 
permission to present her case to her father 


Doctor Izard, 


i88 

and see what could be done with him. Per- 
haps when that father came to know her need 
he would find that he did not want the money 
* as much as he made out ; at all events the at- 
tempt was worth trying, and thus it was that 
Clarke braved the storm on this October night 
to interview a man he hated. 

As he approached the brow of the hill he 
heard a noise of mingled laughter and singing, 
and glancing from under his umbrella he per- 
ceived that the various windows of the cottage 
were brilliantly lighted. The sight gave him 
a shock. “ He is having one of his chess and 
checker orgies,” he commented to himself, 
and demurred at intruding himself at a time 
so unfavorable. But the remembrance of his 
mother and Polly, sitting together in anxious 
expectation of the good effects of his visit, 
determined him to proceed ; and triumphing 
over his own disgust, he worked his way as 
rapidly as possible, and soon stood knee-deep 
in the snow that was piled up before the cot- 
tage door. The wind was blowing from the 
north and it struck him squarely as he raised 
his hand to the knocker, but though it bit into 


189 ' 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 

his skin, he paused a moment to listen to the 
final strains of old Cheeseborough’s voice, as 
he sang with rare sweetness a quaint old Eng- 
lish ballad. 

When it was over Clarke knocked. A sud- 
den pushing back of chairs over a bare floor 
announced that his summons had been heard, 
and presently he had the satisfaction of seeing 
the door open and the figure of Mr. Earle 
standing before him. Clarke did not wait to 
be addressed. 

“ I am Clarke Unwin,” he announced. May 
I be allowed the pleasure of a few minutes 
conversation with you ? ” 

A few minutes,” emphasized the other, 
drawing back with almost too free an air of 
hospitable welcome. “ I hope you will not 
limit yourself to a few minutes, my boy ; we 
have too good company here for that.” And 
without waiting for any demur on the part of 
his more than unwilling guest, he flung open a 
door at the right, and ushered him, greatly 
against his will, into the large parlor where 
Clarke had last stood with Polly at his side. 

Just now it was filled with the choicest of 


190 


Doctor Izard, 


the convivial spirits in town, most of whom 
had been playing checkers or chess and smok- 
ing till not a face present was fully visible. 
Yet Clarke, in the one quick glance he threw 
about him, recognized most if not all of the 
persons present — Horton by his oaths, which 
rang out with more or less good-natured em- 
phasis with every play he made, and the three 
cronies in the corner by various characteristics 
well known in Hamilton, where these men 
passed for “ the three disgraces.” 

One person only was a perfect stranger to 
Clarke, but him he scarcely noticed, so intent 
was he on his errand and the desire he had of 
speaking to Mr. Earle alone. 

“Hurrah! Come I Here ’s Clarke Unwin 1 ” 
shouted a voice from the depths of the smoky 
pall. “Brought your flute with you? No- 
body comes here without some means of en- 
tertaining the company.” 

“ Off with your coat ; there ’s snow sticking 
to it 1 Uh ! You Ve robbed the room of all 
the heat there was in it,” grumbled old Cheese- 
borough, whose fretfulness nobody minded 
because of the good nature that underlay it. 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 1 9 1 

Freedom Hall, this ! ” whispered Earle, 
still with that over-officious air Clarke had 
noticed in him at the doorway. ‘‘ Sit with 
your coat on, or sit with it off ; anything to 
suit yourself ; only one thing we insist on — 
you must take a good glass-full of this piping 
hot cider before you speak a word. So much 
for good fellowship. Afterward you shall do 
as you please.” 

“ I have not come for enjoyment, but busi- 
ness,” put in Clarke, waving the glass aside 
and looking with some intentness into the face 
of the man upon whose present disposition de- 
pended so much of his own happiness and that 
of the young girl he had taken to his heart. 

Earle, who had a secret pride in his own 
personal appearance which, now that he was in 
good physical condition, was not without a 
certain broad handsomeness, strutted back a 
pace and surveyed Clarke with interest. 

“ You are looking,” said he, “ to see how I 
compare with that picture over your head. 
Well, as I take it, that picture, though painted 
sixteen years ago, does not do me justice. 
What do you think ? ” 


192 


Doctor Izard, 


Clarke, somewhat taken aback, as much by 
the smile which accompanied these words, as 
by the words themselves, hesitated for a mo- 
ment and then boldly said : 

'' What you have gained in worldly knowl- 
edge and intercourse with men you have lost 
in that set purpose which gives character to 
the physiognomy and fills all its traits with in- 
dividuality. In that face on the wall I see the 
inventor, but in yours, as it now confronts me, 
the " 

“Well, what?” 

“ The centre of this very delightful group,” 
finished Clarke, suavely. 

It was said with a bow which included the 
whole assembly. Earle laughed and one or 
two about him frowned, but Clarke, heeding 
nobody, asked if he could not have a moment’s 
conversation with his host in the hall. 

Earle, with a side glance directed, as Clarke 
thought, toward the one slight man in the cor- 
ner whose face was unfamiliar to him, shook 
his head at this suggestion and blurted out : 
“ That ’s against the rules. When the Hail- 
Fellow-Well-Met Society cornes together it i^ 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 193 

as one body. What is whispered in one corner 
is supposed to be heard in the next. Out with 
your business then, here. I have no secrets 
and can scarcely suppose you to have.” 

If this was meant to frighten Clarke off it 
did not succeed. He determined to speak, and 
speak as he was commanded right there and 
then. 

'' Well,” said he, “ since you force me to take 
the town into our confidence, I will. Your 
daughter ” 

'‘Ah,” quoth Earle, genially, "she has re- 
membered, then, that she has a father. She 
sends me her love, probably. Dear girl, how 
kind of her on this wintry night ! ” 

" She sends you her respects,” Clarke cor- 
rected, frankly, "and wants to know if you 
insist upon having the last few dollars that she 
possesses.” 

" Oh, what taste ! ” broke in the father, some- 
what disconcerted. " I did think you would 
have better judgment than to discuss money 
matters in a social gathering like this. But 
since you have introduced the topic you may 
say to my dutiful little girl that since I have 


194 


Doctor Izard, 


only asked for such sums as she is perfectly 
able to part with, I shall certainly expect her 
to recognize my claim upon her without hesi- 
tation or demur. Have you anything more 
to say, Mr. Unwin?” 

, Clarke, whose eye had wandered to the 
stranger in the corner, felt no desire to back 
out of the struggle, unpleasing as this publicity 
was. He therefore answered with a determined 
nod, and with a few whispered words which 
caused a slight decrease in the air of bravado 
with which his host regarded him. 

“ You persist,” that individual remarked, 
“ notwithstanding the rules I have had thehonor 
of quoting to you ? I should not have expected 
it of you, Mr. Unwin; but since your time is 
short, as you say, and the subject must be dis- 
cussed, what do you advise, gentlemen ? Shall 
I listen to the plea of this outsider — outsider 
as regards this meeting, I mean, not as regards 
my feelings toward him as a father — and 
break our rules by taking him into another 
room, or shall I risk a blush or two for 
my charming little daughters perversity, and 
hear him out in your very good company and 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 195 

perhaps, under your equally good and worthy 
advice ? ” 

“ Hear him here ! ” piped up Cheeseborough, 
whose wits were somewhat befuddled by some- 
thing stronger than cider. 

'' No, no, shame !” shouted Emmons. “ Polly 
is a good girl and we have no business med- 
dling with her affairs. Let them have their 
talk upstairs. I can find enough here to inter- 
est me.” 

“Yes, yes, there ’s the game ! Let ’s finish 
the game ! Such interruptions are enough to 
spoil all nice calculations.” 

“You were making for the king row.” 

“ Checkmate in three moves ! ” 

“ Here ! fill up my glass first ! ” 

“ I declare if my pipe has n’t gone out ! ” 

Clarke, who heard these various exclamations 
without heeding them, glanced at Earle for his 
decision, but Earle’s eye was on the man in the 
farthest corner. 

“Well, we ’ll go upstairs!” he announced 
shortly wheeling about and leading the way 
into the hall. Clarke followed and was about 
to close the door behind him when a slim 


196 


Doctor Izard. 


figure intervened between him and the door, 
and the stranger he had previously noticed 
glided into the hall. 

“Who ’s this?” he asked, noticing that this 
man showed every sign of accompanying them. 

“ A friend,” retorted Earle, “ one of the de- 
voted kind who sticks closer than a brother.” 

Clarke, astonished, surveyed the thin young 
man who waited at the foot of the stairs and 
remarked nonchalantly, “ I do not know him.” 
Earle, with a shrug of the shoulders, went up- 
stairs. 

“You may have the opportunity later,” he 
dryly remarked ; “at present, try and fix your 
attention on me.” They proceeded to the in- 
ventor’s workroom, where they found a light 
already burning. 

“Sit down !” commanded Earle, with some- 
thing of the authority which his years, if not 
his prospective attitude toward the young man 
warranted. But he did not sit himself, nor 
did the friend who had followed him upstairs 
and who now hovered about somewhere in the 
background. “ It will take Emmons just ten 
minutes to perfect the ‘ mate ’ he has threat- 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 


197 


ened,” observed Earle as they faced each other. 
“ Can you finish your talk in as short a time? 
For I must be down there before they start a 
fresh game.” 

“ Five minutes should suffice me,” returned 
Clarke, “but you may need a longer time for 
argument. Shall I state just what our situa- 
tion is as regards this money you want from 
Polly ? ” 

“If you -will be so good ! ” 

“With that man listening in the doorway? ” 

“ With that man listening in the doorway.” 

“ Polly has no money to spare, Mr. Earle. 
Of the twenty thousand left her you have 
already had ten ” 

“For my just debts, Mr. Unwin.” 

“ For your just debts, granted, Mr. Earle, 
but those debts were not incurred for her bene- 
fit, nor have you ever deigned to particularize 
to her just what they were.” 

“ I would not burden her young mind.” 

“ No, it has been enough for you to burden 
her purse.” 

“ I should have burdened her conscience had 
I neglected to ask for her assistance.” 


198 


Doctor hard. 


“ And will you now, by declining to take 
away her last hope, allow her the means of re- 
trieving the fortune of which you have so 
nearly robbed her ? ” 

“Her hopes? Her means? I think you 
are speaking for yourself, sir.” 

“In speaking for myself, I speak for her; 
our interests are identical.” 

“ You flatter yourself ; Miss Earle is not yet 
your wife.” 

“Would you come between us?” 

“ God forbid ! I am willing that Polly, as 
you call her, should marry whom she will — 
when I am dead.” 

“ Or when you have robbed her of every 
cent she owns.” 

“Oh, what language ! I marvel you have 
not more delicacy of expression, Mr. Unwin. 
Your father was noted for his refinement.” 

“ He had not to deal with — ” the word was 
almost out, but Clarke restained himself — 
“with a man who could forsake his motherless 
child in her tender years, only to expect un- 
bounded sacrifices from her when she has 
attained maturity.” 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


199 


“ I expect no more than she will be glad to 
grant. Maida has pride — so have you. You 
would neither of you like to see her father in 
jail.” 

Clarke bounded to his feet. 

“ We do not imprison men here for debt,” 
he cried. 

“ No, but you do for theft.” 

The word, so much worse than any he was 
prepared for, turned Clarke pale. He looked 
to right and left and shrank as he caught the 
eye of the slim watcher in the hall beyond. 

“You surely are not a criminal,” he whis- 
pered. “ That man ” 

“ Never mind that man. Our ten minutes 
are fast flying by and you do not yet seem to 
see that I cannot aflbrd to relinquish my hold 
on Polly.” 

“ Do you mean that your debts ” 

“Were incurred in private ? Certainly, and 
under circumstances which place me in a 
dilemma of no very pleasing nature. If they 
are not all paid by the first of next month, I 
shall have to subject my very conscientious 
little daughter to the obloquy of visiting her 


-200 


Doctor Izard. 


father in prison. It is a shame, but such is the 
injustice of men.” 

“ You have stolen then ?” 

“ Too harsh a word, Clarke. I have bor- 
rowed money for the purpose of perfecting my 
experiments. The experiments have failed, 
and the money — well, the man from whom I 
borrowed it will have it, that is all. He is 
strict in his views, notwithstanding his long 
forbearance.” 

“ Who is this man ? I should like to talk to 
him. That fellow behind you is surely not he ? ” 

“ Oh, no ; he is only a detective.” 

“ A detective ! ” 

“ Who likes my table and bed so well he 
never knows when he has had enough of 
either.” 

“Shameful ! ” sprang from Clarke’s set lips, 
as his eyes flew first to the watchful but non- 
chalant figure in the hall, and then to the tall, 
commanding form of the man who could ac- 
cept his degrading situation with such an air 
of mingled sarcasm and resignation. 

“ And you are the man to whom the French 
government sent her badge of honor ! ” 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 201 

“ The same, Clarke,” tapping his breast. 

“ And you dare to call Polly your child ; 
dare to return to Hamilton with this disgrace 
upon you, to make her life a hell and ” 

“ Maida is my child ; and as for this dis- 
grace, as you call it, it will be easy enough for 
her to elude that ; a certain check drawn on 
her bank and signed by her name will do it.” 

“ I should like to be sure of that,” returned 
Clarke, springing back into the hall and con- 
fronting the man who stood there. “If you 
are a detective,” said he, “you are here in the 
interest of the man whom Mr. Earle has 
robbed ? ” 

The slight young man, in no wise discon- 
certed, smiled politely, but with an air of quiet 
astonishment directed mainly toward Ephraim 
Earle. 

“ I am here in the interest of Brown, Shep- 
herd, & Co., certainly,” said he. “ But I have 
uttered no such word as robbed, nor will^ un- 
less the first of the month shows Mr. Earle’s 
indebtedness to them unpaid.” 

“ I see. In what city does Brown, Shepherd, 
& Co. do business ? ” 


202 


Doctor Izard, 


“ In New York, sir.” 

‘‘ Merchants, lawyers, bankers, or what ?” 

“ Bankers.” 

“Oh, I remember; in Nassau street?” 

“Just so.” 

Mr. Earle, who had taken up a cigar from 
his table while this short colloquy took place, 
stepped forward. 

“ A very strict firm, thorough, and not much 
given to showing mercy, eh ?” 

“ Not much,” smiled the man. 

“You see!” gesticulated Mr. Earle, turning 
to Clarke with a significant smile. 

Clarke, with a sudden heartsick sense of what 
this all meant to him, assumed a stern air. 

“Mr. Earle,” said he, “ I must entreat that 
you come at once and present this matter to 
Polly. She ought to know particulars, that 
she may judge whether or not she will sacrifice 
her fortune to save you from the disgrace you 
have incurred.” 

“What, now, with my house full of guests? 
Impossible. The affair will keep till to-mor- 
row. I will be down to-morrow and tell her 
anything you wish.” 


203 


A Pickaxe a7td a Spade. 

“She cannot wait till to-morrow! I must 
send the letter to-morr.ow which decides my 
future.” 

“ That ’s unfortunate ; but you can send 
your letter all the same. I know what her 
decision will be.” 

Clarke felt that he knew too, but would not 
admit it to himself. 

“ I have said my say,” he remarked. “ Either 
you will let her know your precise position to- 
night, or I will take it upon myself to ask her 
for the money for my own uses. She will not 
deny me, if I press her, any more than she will 
probably deny you. So take your choice. I 
am going back to the friends below.” 

Earle, who had not expected such condign 
treatment from one whom he had hitherto re- 
garded as a boy, glanced at the detective, and, 
with the characteristic shrug he had picked up 
in foreign countries, cried out in somewhat 
smothered tones, in which caution struggled 
oddly with his natural bravado : 

“Well, we’ll compromise. I cannot leave 
the H. F. W. M.; but I ’ll tell you what I will 
do. I ’ll write out the situation for my daugh- 


204 


Doctor Izard, 


ter, and you shall carry the paper with you. 
Won’t that do, considering the circumstances, 
eh ? ’’ 

Clarke, to whom this man’s character was a 
perfect anomaly, murmured a hesitating con- 
sent and hurried down into the room below. 
Earle followed him, and, entering with frank 
jocularity, in striking contrast with the other’s 
dejected appearance, he cheerfully called out : 

“ Well, I ’ve convinced the boy, somewhat, 
against his will, I own, that a few thousands 
spent on the invention I have now on hand 
will bring in a much larger fortune to Maida 
than that I have perhaps rather recklessly ex- 
pended. It was just so when I was perfecting 
my first invention, don’t you remember ? 
Every dollar I spent on it was begrudged me, 
and yet see what an outcome there was to it 
at last.” 

“Yes, yes; but where is all that money 
now ? ” queried old Cheeseborough, wagging 
his iron gray head. “ Nobody here ever saw 
a dollar of it, and I have heard people say 
they don’t believe you ever got it.” 

“ Would you bring up the saddest hours of 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 


205 


my life ? ” asked Earle, with a sudden cloud on 
his brow. “ I got the money, but — ” he stopped, 
shook himself and changed his tone for one of 
cheerful command. “ Here, you ! Start a 
fresh game, Emmons. I see that your check- 
mate is good. I Ve got to write a letter. 
Who will bet that I won’t get my six pages 
done before Hale will succeed in getting three 
men into the king row?” 

“ I will ! ” 

“ Put down your dollar then ! ” 

“ There it is.” 

“ And there ’s mine, with a condition to 
boot. I ’ll write the letter in this room, and 
give Cheeseborough another chance at a song, 
if you say so.” 

“ Done ! Fire away, old man ; here goes 
my first move ! ” 

“ And here my first word.” 

And, to Clarke’s mingled surprise and dis- 
gust, Earle threw himself down before a table, 
took up a pen and began to write. Cheese- 
borough piped up with his thin, sweet voice 
something between a dirge and a chant, and 
Horton went on with his oaths. 


XVI. 


THE LETTER. 

W HEN Ephraim Earle had taken up his 
abode in the cottage on the hill, Mrs. 
Unwin had moved into a small house on a 
side street in the lower part of the town. In 
the cosy parlor of this same house, she was 
now sitting with Polly, waiting for her son’s 
return. 

He had been gone a couple of hours, and 
both ^Mrs. Unwin and Polly were listening 
anxiously for the sound of his step on the 
porch. Polly, with the impatience of youth, 
was flitting about the room and pressing her 
face continually against the icy panes of the 
window, in a vain endeavor to look out ; but 
Mrs. Unwin, to whom care had become a con- 
stant companion during these last months, was 
satisfied to remain by the fire, gazing into the 

206 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 207 

burning logs and dreaming of one whose face 
had never vanished from her inner sight since 
that fatal evening she had seen it smile again 
upon her as in the days of her early youth. 
Yes, she was thinking of him while Polly was 
babbling of Clarke ; thinking of the last sen- 
tence he had uttered to her, and thinking also 
of the vague reports that had come to her from 
day to day, of his increased peculiarities and the 
marked change to be observed in his appear- 
ance. Her heart was pleading for another 
sight of him, while her ear was ostensibly 
turned toward Polly, who was alternately com- 
plaining of the weather and wondering what 
they should do if her father insisted upon hav- 
ing the money, right or wrong. Suddenly she 
felt two aums around her neck, and rousing 
herself, looked down at Polly, who in her rest- 
lessness had fallen on her knees before her and 
was studying her face with two bright and very 
inquiring eyes. 

'' How can you sit still,” the young girl 
asked, “ when so much depends upon the mes- 
sage Clarke will bring back?” Mrs. Unwin 
smiled, but not as youth smiles, either in sor- 


2o8 


Doctor Izard. 


row or in joy, and Polly, moved by that smile, 
though she little understood it, exclaimed im- 
petuously : 

“ Oh, you are so placid, so serene ! Were 
you always so, dear Mrs. Unwin ? Have you 
never felt angry or impatient when you were 
kept waiting or things did not go to your 
liking ? ” 

The sweet face that was under Polly’s steady 
gaze flushed for an instant and the patient eyes 
grew moist. “ I have had my troubles,” ad- 
mitted Mrs. Unwin, “and sometimes I have 
not been as patient with them as I should. 
But we learn forbearance with time, and 
now ” 

“ Now you are an angel,” broke in Polly. 

“ Ah ! ” was Mrs. U nwin’s short reply, as she 
stroked the curly head nestling in her lap. 

“ Clarke says that whatever happens I must 
be brave,” babbled the forlorn-hearted little girl 
from under that caressing hand. “ That pov- 
erty is not so dreadful, and that in time he will 
win his way without help from any one. But 
Oh, Mrs. Unwin, to think I might be the means 
of giving him the very start he needs, and then 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 209 

to be held back by one — Dear Mrs. Unwin, do 
you think it wicked to hate ? ” 

The question was so sudden, and the vision 
of the girl’s uplifted head with its flashing eyes 
and flushed cheeks so startling, that Mrs. 
Unwin hesitated for a moment, not knowing 
exactly what to say. But Polly, carried away 
now by a new emotion, did not wait for any 
answer. 

“ Because I am afraid I really hate him. 
Why has he come into our lives just when we 
don’t want him ; and why does he take from 
us everything we have? If he loved me I 
could bear it possibly, but he don’t even love 
me ; and then — and then — he lives in such a 
way and spends his money so recklessly ! 
Don’t you think it is wrong, Mrs. Unwin, 
and that I would be almost justified in not 
giving him everything he asks for ? ” 

“I should not give him this last five thousand, 
unless he can show you that his need is very 
great. No one will blame you ; you have 
been only too generous.” 

“ I know, I know% and I am sure you are 
right, but notwithstanding that, something as- 


2 lO 


Doctor Izard, 


sures me that I shall do just what he wishes 
me to. I cannot refuse him — I do not know 
why, perhaps because he is my father.” 

Mrs. Unwin, whose face had assumed a look 
of resolution as Polly said this, impulsively 
stooped and inquired with marked emphasis, 
“ Then you feel — you really feel at last, that 
he is your father? You have no doubt; no 
lurking sensation of revolt as if you were sacri- 
ficing yourself to an interloper ? ” 

Polly’s head sank on her clasped hands, and 
she seemed to weigh her answer before reply- 
ing; then she responded with almost an angry 
suddenness. 

“ I wish I could feel he is not what he pre- 
tends to be, but the villainous impostor Dr. 
Izard considers him. But I cannot. No, no, 
I have no such excuse for my antipathy to- 
ward him.” 

Mrs. Unwin leaned back, and her counte- 
nance resumed its dreamy expression. 

“ Then I shall not advise you,” said she. 
“You must follow the dictates of your own 
conscience.” 

Polly rose and ran again to the window, this 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 2 1 1 

time with a cry of joy. “He is coming! 
Clarke is coming 1 I hear the gate click,” and 
she bounded impatiently toward the door. 

In a few minutes she returned with her lover ; 
he had a letter in his hand and he was contem- 
plating her with saddened eyes. 

“You will need courage, dear, to read this,” 
said he. “ It is from your father and it puts 
his case before you very clearly — too clearly, 
perhaps. Your estimate of him was not far 
from correct, Polly. The story of his past life 
is not one you can read without shame and 
humiliation.” 

“ I knew it ! I saw it in his face the first time 
I looked at him. I saw it before. I saw it in 
his picture. O Clarke, I shrink even from his 
writing; must I read this letter?” 

“ I think you should ; I think you should 
know just what threatens us if you refuse him 
the money.” 

Polly took the letter. 

“You have read it?” she inquired. 

But Clarke shook his head. 

“ I know the nature of its contents, but I did 
not wait to read the letter. He wrote it in a 


2 1 2 


Doctor Izard. 


roomful of men, under a wager ” Clarke 

paused ; why hurt her with these details ? 
“ But what does that matter? It is the facts 
you want. Come, screw up your courage, dear ; 
or stay, let me read it to you.” 

She gave him the letter and he read to her 
these words : 

Dear Maida : You wish to know why I want another 
five thousand dollars after having received a good ten 
thousand from you already. Well, I am going to tell you. 
I have two passions, one for mechanical invention and 
one — I must be candid or this letter will fail in its object 
— for wild and unlimited pleasure. When I was young 
I had not enough money to indulge in but one of these 
instincts, but on the day I saw twenty thousand dollars 
in my hand, my other passion, long suppressed, awoke, 
and notwithstanding the fact that your mother lay dying 
in the house, I resolved to leave the town where I was 
known as soon as she was decently buried, for as I said 
to myself, the possession of twenty thousand dollars 
means the making of a fortune in Monte Carlo, and a 
maddening good time of it meanwhile. 

But twenty thousand dollars do not always bring a for- 
tune, even in Monte Carlo. I lost as well as won and 
though I had the good time I had anticipated I was not 
much richer at the end of five years than I was before 
my first invention was perfected. And then came a 
Struggle. My good times grew fewer and I was forced to 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


213 


change my name more than once as I drifted from France 
to Italy and from Italy to Germany, seeking to reinstate 
myself, but being dreadfully hampered by my taste for 
the luxuries of life and the companionship of men who 
were sufficiently good-natured, but not always honest or 
sincere. At last I awoke to the necessity of action. I had 
an idea — one that had been floating in my head ever since 
the perfection of my first invention, and I realized that if 
I could but develop it practically I was sure to win a 
greater sum than that I had earned by my first efforts. 
But to do this it would take money — considerable money, 
and I had none. Now how could I remedy this defect ? 
I knew but one way — by play. So I began to play for 
keeps, that is for a capital, denying myself this time and 
forgetting for once the delights that can be got out of a 
thousand francs. I saved, actually saved, and becoming 
strangely prosperous the moment I set a distinct purpose 
before my eyes, I won and won till I had a decided nest- 
egg laid up in the leathern bag which I secretly wore tied 
about my waist. But though this looked well, it did not 
satisfy me. I wanted thousands and I had but hundreds ; 
so I took a partner who was not above a trick or two and 
— well, you do not understand these things — but matters 
went very smoothly with me after this, so smoothly that 
possibly I might have allowed myself one little glimpse 
into my old paradise if I had had a little more confidence 
in my own discretion and had not been afraid of the 
charms of a spot that swallows a man, neck and crop, if 
he once plunges his head into it. So for a few months 
more, I remained firm and grew steadily rich, till the day 


214 


Doctor Izard, 


came when by an enormous streak of luck I became the 
owner of the very amount I had calculated it would take 
to put into operation my new invention. 

I was in St. Petersburg when this happened, and for five 
hours I sat in my garret chamber feasting my eyes upon 
the money I had acquired, and shutting my ears to every 
sound from without that summoned me to the one short 
hour of wild enjoyment I had certainly earned. Then I 
put the money back into my bag, took the frugal supper 
I had prepared and went to bed with the determination 
of rising early and devoting the early hours of the morn- 
ing to drawing my first plans. 

But in that sleep / forgot the essential idea upon which 
the whole thing rested. It went from me as utterly as if it 
had been wiped out. In vain I prodded my memory and 
called upon all the powers of earth and air to assist me 
in my dreadful dilemma. I no more knew where to place 
the lines I had for years seen clearly before me than if I 
had never conceived the thing or seen it a completed ob- 
ject in my mind’s eye. Success had dampened my wits, 
or in the long struggle with my second passion I had lost 
my hold upon the first. The money necessary to eluci- 
date the idea was mine, but I had lost the idea ! The 
situation was maddening. 

Fearing the results of this unexpected disappointment 
upon my already weakened self-control, I fled to my 
partner, who was a good fellow in the main, and begged 
him to take and keep for a week my leather bag with 
its valuable contents, adding that he was not to give it 
back to me till the seven days were up, even if I en- 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


215 


treated him for it on my knees. He promised, and 
greatly relieved I left him for a stroll through the streets. 
You see I hoped to regain my idea before the week was 
out. But alas for the weakness of human nature ! In- 
stead of keeping my mind upon work, I spent my time 
in gorgeous rooms hung with mirrors in which was re- 
flected every lovely thing I worshipped. I heard music, 
and — but why enlarge the vista further? Not having any 
goal for my energy, I fell, and when I got my money 
back, I lived another five years of boundless luxury. 

When the last dollar went, I fell sick. I was in New 
York now, calling myself Harold Deane, and I boarded 
in a humble boarding-house in Varick street where there 
was one kind w'oman who looked after me without ask- 
ing whether I had any money to pay for my keep. 
I sent fifty dollars to that woman out of the first 
money you gave me, my dear. Pardon the digression. 
I merely wished to show you that I am not without 
gratitude. When I recovered from my delirium - and 
lifted up my head again in this wicked, fascinating 
world, my mind was clear as a bell and I saw, all in a 
minute, the machine again, line for line, whose action 
was to transform trade and make me a millionaire. 
Though I was too weak to sit up, I called out for pencil 
and paper, and at the risk of being thought crazy, 
scrawled a rude outline of the thing I had lost so long 
from my consciousness and which I held now by such 
uncertain tenure that I feared to lose it again, if I let the 
moment go by. This I put under my pillow. But 
when I awoke from the sleep which followed, the draw- 


Doctor Izard. 


216 

ing was gone, destroyed by the good woman who thought 
it the mad scrawling of a delirious man. But this loss 
did not trouble me at this time, for the image remained 
clear in my mind and I was no longer afraid of losing it. 

But again I had no money, and confident that in this 
country and in my present condition it would be useless 
for me to seek it in the old way, I cast about in my 
mind how to obtain it by work. Reason pointed out but 
one course. To get into some large business or banking 
establishment, and after winning the confidence of the 
moneyed men I would thus meet, to reveal my idea and 
obtain their backing. But this was no easy matter 
for a poor wretch like me. My life had left its im- 
prints on my face, and I had neither means nor friends. 
But I had something else that stood me in good stead. 
I had audacity and I had wit, together with a sound busi- 
ness instinct as regards figures. And so in time I was 
successful and was taken into the banking house of 
Brown, Shepherd, & Co. in Nassau street. 

Again I had an incentive toward thrift. For three 
months I worked for their good-will, and after that for 
the good of my purse. This latter phrase may not be 
plain to you, but when you consider the possibilities 
opened by a banking house to enrich a man accustomed 
to use his wits, — possibilities so much greater than those 
afforded by the selfish consideration of a few capitalists 
with whom one in my position comes in contact, — you 
can understand me more readily. At the end of that 
time I had fifteen thousand dollars laid away ; and the 
company did not even know that they had sustained any 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


217 


loss. Well, I meant to repay them when I realized my 
fortune, but — luck has been against me, you know — the 
sight of the money was too much for me one night, and 
I forgot everything in a wild spree which lasted just one 
week. 

When it was over and I came to myself I found that 
I had again forgotten the essential part of my invention, 
and that the money, which I always carried in the old bag 
about my waist and which I had never lost sight of be- 
fore, was also gone, leaving me ^destitute of everything 
but the clothes I wore. I was desperate then and thought 
of killing myself, but I hated blood and have a horror of 
poison, so I delayed, expecting to go back to the banking 
house as soon as my appearance would warrant it. But 
I never went. I received from some unknown friend a 
warning that my absence had provoked inquiry, and that 
my reappearance in Nassau street would be the signal for 
my arrest, so I not only kept away from that part of the 
city, but left the town as soon as I had money to do so, 
wandering as far west as Chicago and sinking lower and 
lower as the weeks went by, till my old trouble gripped 
me again and I found myself in a hospital, given up for 
dead. The name by which I was entered there was 
Simeon Halleck, but I had worn a dozen during my life- 
time. 

I was regarded by those around me as a stray and by 
myself as a lost man, when suddenly one night, no mat- 
ter how, I learned, my little daughter, that you, whose 
existence I had almost forgotten, was not only alive and 
well, but likely to become the inheritor of a pretty for- 


2i8 


Doctor Izard, 


tune. At this I plucked up courage, conquered my dis- 
ease and came out of the hospital a well man. Having 
been known as Simeon Halleck, it was necessary for 
me now, in order to present myself as Ephraim Earle, to 
lose my old identity before I assumed my new, — or 
rather, I should say, my real one. How I did this would 
not interest you, so I will pass on to the day when, with 
my beard grown a foot, I ventured into this town and be- 
gan to look around to see whether there was any place left 
for me in the hearts of my old friends or in the affections of 
my child. I found, as I thought — was it rightly ? — that 
I would receive a decent welcome if I returned, and so 
after a proper length of time I re-entered Hamilton, this 
time shaven and shorn, and boldly announced my claims 
and relations to yourself. 

The results of this action I am reaping to-day, but 
while I am happy and cared for, I do not find myself in 
a position to enjoy the full benefits of my position from 
the facts, now to be explained, that the police of New 
York are sharper than I thought, and when I went to 
Boston, after my first trip to this town, I found myself 
confronted by an agent of Brown, Shepherd, & Co. They 
had discovered my theft and threatened me with a term in 
state prison. My dear, I knew that no daughter with a 
fortune of twenty thousand dollars would wish to see her 
father suffer from such disgrace, so I made a clean breast 
of it and told him all my hopes, and promised if the firm 
I had robbed would give me three months of freedom I 
would restore them every penny I had taken from them. 
As they could hope for nothing if they landed me in jail, 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


219 

they readily acceded to my request, and I came to 
Hamilton followed by a detective, and with the task be- 
fore me of obtaining fifteen thousand dollars from you in 
three months. Ten of these you have cheerfully given 
me, but you cavil at the last five. 

Will you cavil any longer when you realize that by 
denying them to me you will land me in prison and brand 
your future children with the disgrace of a convict grand- 
father ? I would say more, but the time allotted me for 
writing this letter is about up. Answer it as you will, but 
remember that however you may writhe under the yoke, 
you are blood of my blood and your honor can never be 
disassociated from mine in this world or the next. 

Your loving father, 

Ephraim Earle. 

P. S. I have Brown, Shepherd, & Co.’s written promise 
that with the payment of this last five thousand, all pro- 
ceedings against me shall be entirely stopped, and that 
neither as a firm nor as individuals will they remember 
that Ephraim Earle and Simeon Halleck are one. 


XVII. 


MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD IZARD PLACE. 

LARKE knew when he began to read 



this letter what effect it was likely to 
have on his own prospects, but he was little 
prepared for the change it was destined to 
make in Polly. She, who at its commence- 
ment had been merely an apprehensive child, 
became a wan and stricken woman before 
the final words were reached ; her girlish face, 
with its irresistible dimples, altering under her 
emotions till little of her old expression was 
left. Her words, when she could speak, showed 
what the recoil of her whole nature had been 
from the depths of depravity thus heartlessly 
revealed to her. 

Oh, what wickedness ! ” she cried. “ I did 
not know that such things could be ! Cer- 
tainly I never heard anything like it before. 


220 


22 


A Pickaxe a7id a Spade, 

Do you wonder that I have always felt stifled 
in his presence ? ” 

Mrs. Unwin and Clarke tried to comfort her, 
but she seemed to be possessed of but one idea. 
“Take me home!” she cried; “let me think 
it out alone. I am a disgrace to you here; he 
is a thief and I am the daughter of a thief. 
Until every cent that he has taken is returned, 
I am a participator in his crime and not worthy 
to look you in the face.” 

They tried to prove to her the fallacy of this 
reasoning, but she would not be convinced. 
“Take me home!” she again repeated; and 
Clarke out of pure consideration complied 
with her request. She was still living with 
the Fishers, but when they reached the hum- 
ble doorstep which had been witness to many 
a tender parting and loving embrace, Polly 
gave her lover a strange look, and hardly lin- 
gered long enough to hear his final words of 
encouragement and hope. 

“ I will see you to-morrow,” she murmured, 
“but I can say no more to-night — no, not one 
word ” ; and with something of the childish 
petulance of her earlier years she partially 


222 


Doctor Izard. 


closed the door upon him, and then was half 
sorry for it, when she heard the deep sigh that 
escaped him as he plunged back into the snow 
that lay piled up between the house and the 
gate. 

“ I am wicked,” she muttered, half to herself, 
half to him; “come back!” but the words 
were lost in the chilly wind, and in another 
moment he had reached the street and was 
gone. Had he looked back he would not have 
disappeared so suddenly, for Polly, as soon as 
she thought herself alone, suddenly pushed 
open the door, peered out and, with a mo- 
mentary hesitation, slipped out again into the 
street. 

The snow had ceased falling, the moon had 
come out and was lighting up the great trees 
that lined either side of the road. Polly cast 
one look down the splendid but deserted vista, 
and then with the thoughtless daring which 
had always signalized her, began running down 
the street towards that end of the town where 
the road turns up towards the churchyard. 
She was guided by but one thought, the neces- 
sity of seeing Dr. Izard before she slept. The 


-7 Pickaxe and a Spade. 


223 


thickness of the snow beneath her feet impeded 
her steps and made the journey seem long to 
her panting eagerness. She met nobody, but 
she thought nothing of that, nor did she note 
that the lights were out in the various houses 
she passed. Her mind was so full of her pur- 
pose that the only fear of which she was con- 
scious was that she would find the doctor away 
or deaf to her summons. When the tavern 
was passed and the shadow of the church 
reached, she drew a deep breath. Only a few 
steps more and she would be passing the gate- 
posts in front of the Izard mansion. But how 
still everything was ! She seemed to realize it 
now, and was struck by the temerity of her 
action, as the desolate waste of the church- 
yard opened up before her and she heard, 
pealing loud above her head, the notes of the 
great church-clock striking eleven ! 

But she knew that the doctor never retired 
before twelve, and the need she felt of an im- 
mediate consultation with one who had known 
her father in his youth, buoyed her up, and 
dashing on with a shudder, she turned the 
corner and came abreast with the house she 


224 


Doctor Izard, 


was bound for. But here something which 
she saw, first dazed, then confounded her. 
The house was lighted ! The Izard house, 
which had been vacated for years! Had the 
doctor found a tenant then without her 
knowledge, or, led by some incomprehensible 
freak, had he lighted it up himself ? 

While she was gazing and wondering, al- 
most forgetting her own purpose in her aston- 
ishment at this unwonted sight, there rose a 
sudden wild halloo behind her, followed by the 
shouts of drunken voices and the sound of 
advancing footsteps. The visitors at her 
father s cottage had reached the main street, 
and, seeing the lighted mansion, were as much 
struck by its unwonted appearance as she had 
been, and were coming down the road for a 
nearer inspection. 

Alarmed now in good earnest, and by a 
more natural fear than that which had first 
agitated her, she looked around for a spot to 
hide in, and, finding none, plunged towards 
the house itself. What she expected to gain 
by this move she hardly knew ; but once on the 
porch, and in the shadows of the great pillars 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 


225 


supporting it, she felt easier ; and, though she 
knew this laughing, careless crowd would soon 
be upon her, she felt the nearness of the life 
within to be a safeguard, and, stretching out 
her hand toward the front door, she was 
amazed to find it yield to her touch. 

Under most circumstances this would have 
frightened her away, or, at least, would have 
awakened in her the instinct of alarm ; but 
now the illuminated hall, dimly to be seen 
through the crack she had made, seemed to 
offer her a refuge, and she rushed in, closing 
and locking the door behind her. Instantly 
the desolation of these long disused rooms set- 
tled upon her, and she peered down the hall 
in terror, dreading and half hoping to see 
some one, she did not care whom, stalk from 
some of the several rooms on either side. 
But no one came, and the seeming lack of life 
in the spaces about her soon grew more terri- 
fying than any appearance of man or woman 
would have been. The light which lured her 
into this desolate structure came from a lamp 
standing on a small table at the rear of the 
hall, and presently she found herself insensibly 


226 


Doctor Izard. 


approaching it, having recognized it as one 
she had often seen in the doctor’s study. 

But when she had stepped as far as the cir- 
cular landing opening under the stairs, and 
noted the little winding staircase leading down 
from it into the space below, some faint recog- 
nition of the fact that this was the way to the 
doctor’s study came over her, and, advancing 
breathlessly on tiptoe to the railing which 
guarded this spot, she looked down into the 
well beneath, and was startled at the gust of 
wind which met her there, with all the chill of 
the outside air in it. Was the famous green 
door below open, and did this wind come from 
the graveyard ? 

She was conscious that she had no right to 
advance a step farther, and yet she knew that 
she must find the doctor, if only to throw her- 
self upon^ his protection. So, with many a 
qualm and sinking of the heart, she caught up 
the lamp from the table near by and descended 
the short spiral, rightfully thinking that it 
would be wiser to thus flash upon the doctor 
in a blaze of light rather than to take him by 
surprise in the darkness. Finding the green 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


227 


door open, as she had expected, she tried to 
raise her voice and utter the doctor’s name, 
but articulation failed her. There was some- 
thing so weird in her position that her usual 
recklessness failed to support her, and she had 
hardly the courage to glance into the room 
before which she stood, though instinct had 
already told her it was empty. 

The wind which had met her at the top of 
the staircase increased as she descended, and 
while she was drawing in her breath before it, 
the light went out in her hand and she was left 
standing half in and half out of the doctor’s 
study in a condition of helplessness and ter- 
ror. But this misfortune, while it abashed 
her, was of decided benefit in the end. For 
no sooner was this light out than she was met 
with the glimmering rays of a lantern, shining 
in from the graveyard without, and knowing 
this to be an indication of the doctor’s where- 
abouts, she set down the lamp and was ad- 
vancing with some trepidation toward the door 
when her ears caught a sound — the most dread- 
ful that could be heard in that place — that of 
a spade being forced into the icy ground. 


228 


Doctor Izard, 


Instantly her heart became the prey of a 
thousand sickening emotions. What was the 
doctor doing ? Digging a grave ? Impossible. 
And yet what else would make a sound like 
this ? Even her usually bold spirit was startled 
and she shrank at the thought, wishing for 
Clarke, for her father, for any one to support 
her and take her out of the horrible, moon- 
lighted spot where homes were being made for 
the dead in the dark of night. 

She could not retreat and she dared not ad- 
vance, yet she felt that she must settle her 
doubts by one glimpse of what was going on. 
Approaching the window she peeped out and 
saw — Merciful heavens, was that the doctor ? — 
that wild figure clad in a long wool garment 
which swept to his heels, and digging with 
such frenzy and purpose that the snow flew 
from his spade in clouds ? She was so ab- 
sorbed in the sight that it was a moment be- 
fore she saw that it was her mother’s grave he 
was unearthing and that he was doing this in 
his sleep. But when she fully realized the awful 
fact she uttered a low cry of irrepressible dis- 
may, and no longer fearing anything but this 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 229 

unearthly figure she had chanced upon in the 
moonlight, she dashed from the spot and fled 
up the highway, never resting foot or stopping 
to breathe till she found herself in her own 
room at home. 

Dr. Izard was mad and she alone knew the 
frightful secret. 


XVIII. 


A DECISION. 

W HEN Dr. Izard rose the next morning 
it was with a feeling of lassitude and 
oppression that surprised him. He had re- 
ceived no calls from patients the evening be- 
fore, nor had he retired any later than usual. 
Then why this strained and nervous feeling, 
as if he had not slept ? The snow that had 
fallen so heavily the day before had cleared 
the air, and the dazzle of sunshine finding its 
way into his unusually darkened den prepared 
him for the brilliant scene without. It was 
not in that direction, however, he first looked, 
for he was no sooner on his feet than he 
noticed that the green door which he always 
kept shut and padlocked was open, and that 
in the hall beyond a spade was standing, from 
the lower edge of which a small stream of 


230 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 231 

water had run, staining the floor where it 
rested. 

What did it mean, and what was the ex- 
planation of the dark stains like wet mould on 
the skirt of the long wool garment that he 
wore ? He looked from one to the other, and 
the hair rose on his forehead. Summoning 
up all his courage he staggered to the window 
and drawing the curtain back with icy fingers, 
glanced out. Some vandal had been in the 
graveyard ; one of the graves had been dese- 
crated and the snow and mould lay scattered 
about. As he savy it he realized who the van- 
dal had been, and though no cry left his lips, 
his whole body stiffened till it seemed akin to 
the one he had so nearly disinterred in the 
night. When life and feeling again pervaded 
his frame he sank into a chair near the window 
and these words fell from his lips : “ My doom 
is upon me. I cannot escape it. The will of 
God be done.” 

The next instant he was on his feet. He 
dressed himself in haste, shuddering as he 
bundled up the stained night-robe and thrust 
it into the blazing fire of the stove. Then he 


232 


Doctor Izard. 


caught up the spade, and opening the outside 
door stepped into the glittering sunshine. As 
he did so he noticed two things, equally calcu- 
lated to daunt and surprise him. The first 
was the double row of his own footsteps run- 
ning to and fro between the step and the 
heap of dirt and snow beside the monument ; 
and the other, an equally plain track of foot- 
steps extending from the place where he 
stood to the gate on his left. The former 
were easily explainable, but the latter were 
a mystery ; for if they had been made by 
some nocturnal visitor, why were they all 
directed toward the highway? Had not the 
person making them come as well as gone ? 
Puzzled and no little moved by this mystery, 
he nevertheless did not pause in the work he 
had set for himself. 

Crossing in haste to the monument, he be- 
gan throwing back the icy particles of earth he 
had dug up in the night. Though he shud- 
dered with something more than cold as he 
did so, he did not desist till he had packed the 
snow upon the mould and left the grave looking 
somewhat decent. A sleigh or two shot by on 


^33 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 

the open thoroughfare without while he was 
engaged in this work, and each time as he 
heard the bells he started in painful emotion, 
though he did not raise his head nor desist 
from his labor. When all was done he came 
slowly back, and pausing before the second 
line of footsteps he examined them more 
carefully. 

It was a woman’s tread or that of a child, 
and it came from his own door. Greatly 
troubled he rushed into the track they had 
made and trampled it fiercely out. When he 
reached the gate he stepped into the high- 
way. The steps had passed up the street. 
But what were these he now perceived in 
the inclosure beyond the picket fence, going 
straight to the house and stopping before 
the front door ? They came from the street 
also, and they pointed inward and not out- 
ward. Was he the victim of some temporary 
hallucination, or had a woman entered the 
house by the never^opened front door and 
come out through his office ? It seemed in- 
credible, impossible, but bounding up the steps 
he tried the door, not knowing what he might 


234 


Doclor hard. 


have done in the night. He found it locked 
as usual and drew back confounded, mutter- 
ing again with stony lips, “ My ways are thick- 
ening, and the end is not far off.” 

When he returned again to his office it was 
to replace the spade in the spot from which he 
had evidently taken it. This was up the spiral 
staircase, in a small shed adjoining the large 
rear hall, and as he traversed the path he had 
unconsciously trodden twice in the night, he 
tried to recall what he had done under the in- 
fluence of the horrible nightmare which had 
left behind it such visible evidences of suffer- 
ing. But his consciousness was blank regard- 
ing those hours, and it was with a crushing 
sense of secret and overhanging doom that he 
prepared for his daily work, which happily or 
unhappily for him promised to be more exact- 
ing than usual. 

A dozen persons visited his office that 
morning, and each person as he came glanced 
over at the monument and its disturbed grave. 
Had any whisper of the desecration which had 
there taken place found way to the village? 
The doctor quailed at the thought, but his 
manner gave no sign of his inner emotion. 


235 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 

He was even more punctilious than usual in 
his attention to the wants of his visitors, and 
did not give them by so much as a glance of 
his eye an opportunity for question or gossip. 
At eleven o’clock he went out. There was aver}?’ 
sick child at the other end of the town and he 
could reach it only by passing the Fisher cot- 
tage. It had been taken ill at daybreak and 
word had been brought him by a passing 
neighbor. He had hopes, though he hardly 
acknowledged them to himself, that some ex- 
planation of the footsteps which disturbed him 
would be found in the sickness of this child. 
But when he reached the Fisher house the 
sight of Polly’s disturbed face, peering from 
the parlor window, assured him that the cause 
of his trouble lay deeper than he had hitherto 
feared. The discovery was a great shock to 
him, and as he went on his way he asked him- 
self why he had not stopped and talked to the 
girl and found out whether she had been to 
his house or not the night before, and if so, 
what she had seen. 

But that he 'did not dare to do this was 
apparent even to himself ; for after he had 
prescribed for his little patient he found 


236 


Doctor Izard. 


himself taking another road home, a road 
which led him through frozen fields of un- 
trodden snow, rather than run the risk of en- 
countering Polly’s face again, with those new 
marks upon it of aversion and fear. When 
he re-entered his own gate it was with bowed 
head and shrunken form. His short walk 
through the village, with the discovery he had 
imagined himself to have made, cost him ten 
years of his youth. On his table there lay a 
letter. When he saw it a flush crossed his 
cheek and his form unconsciously assumed its 
wonted air of dignity and pride. It was from 
her and the room seemed to lose something 
of its habitual gloom from its presence. But 
its tenor made him grow pale again. The 
letter read as follows : 

Dear Friend : Clarke has tried every available means 
to avoid the result we feared, but as you will see from the 
inclosed letter from Ephraim Earle, Polly has but one 
course before her, and that is to give her father what he 
demands. She has so decided to-day, and if you see no 
way of interfering, the money will be paid over by nine 
o’clock to-morrow morning. This means years of strug- 
gle for Clarke. You bade us not to apply to you till every 
other hope failed. We have reached that point. Faith- 
fully yours, Grace Unwin. 


XIX. 


TO-MORROW. 

P OLLY had spent an unhappy day. Her 
secret — for so she termed her discovery 
of the night before — weighed heavily upon her, 
and yet she felt it was impossible to part with 
it, even to Clarke. Some instinct of loyalty to 
the doctor who had been almost a parent to 
her influenced her to silence, though she was 
naturally outspoken and given to leaning on 
those she loved. She was sitting in the parlor, 
her back to the window. She had seen the 
doctor pass once that day and she did not want 
to meet his eye again. Fear had taken the 
place of reverence, and confidence had given 
way to distrust. 

Suddenly she heard a door open, and rose 
up startled, for the sound was in the front hall 
and the family were all in the kitchen. Could 
237 


238 Doctor hard, 

it be Clarke returning, or her father, or — she 
had not time to push her conjectures further, 
for at this point the door of the room in which 
she stood swung quickly open and in the gap 
she saw Dr. Izard, with a face so pale that it 
reminded her of the glimpse she had caught 
of him the previous night. But there was 
purpose instead of the blank look of somnam- 
bulism in his eyes, and that purpose was 
directed toward her. 

Polly,” he said, not advancing, but holding 
her fascinated in her place by the intensity of 
his look, “ do not allow yourself to be con- 
strained to sign any check to-day. To-morrow 
you will no longer consider it your duty.” 
And before she could answer or signify her 
assent he was gone, and the front door had 
shut after him. The deep breath which 
escaped her lips showed what that one mo- 
ment of terror had been to her. Springing 
to the window she looked out and started as 
she saw him take the direction of Carberry 
hill. 

“ He is going to see my father,” she mur- 
mured, and moved by a new terror she seized 


239 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 

her hat and coat, and ran, rather than walked, 
to Mrs. U nwin’s cottage. “ Where is Clarke ? ” 
was her breathless demand as she rushed im- 
petuously into the house. “ Dr. Izard is on 
his way to Carberry hill and I am afraid, or 
rather I know, there is going to be trouble 
between him and my father.” 

“ Then Clarke will prevent it. Dr. Izard 
sent him word an hour ago to meet him there 
at five o’clock, and he has been gone from the 
house just five minutes.” 

“ Oh, what is going to happen ? I must 
see ; I must go. They do not know Dr. Izard 
as well as I do.” And without waiting to ex- 
plain her somewhat enigmatical sentence she 
dashed from the house and took her way up 
Carberry hill. 

It was the first time she had been there 
since she was surprised at her father’s door by 
that father’s fatal and unexpected return ; and 
had it not been for the excitement under which 
she was laboring, her limbs would have faltered 
and her whole soul quailed at the prospect. 
But love lent her wings, and a certain dogged 
persistence in duty which underlay the natural 


240 


Doctor Izard. 


effervescence of her spirits kept her to her 
task, and so before she realized it she was at 
the top of that haunted hill and on the door- 
step of the house which was even more repel- 
lent to her now than when the moss hung from 
the eaves and the seal of desolation lay upon 
the door. 

Hearing from within the voices that she 
knew, she waited to give no summons, but 
opened the door and passed in. Three men 
were in the hall — Dr. Izard, Ephraim Earle, 
and Clarke — and from the faces they turned 
toward her she judged that she was not a min- 
ute too soon. 

“Polly!” leaped simultaneously from the lips 
of her lover and from those of Dr. Izard. But the 
one spoke in a sort of tender surprise and the 
other with a mixture of anger and constraint. 

“ Do not mind me,” she said. “ I saw you 
coming here, and I felt that I ought to be 
present.” And the determination in her face 
startled those who had always regarded her as 
a petted child. Her father, who was the only 
person there who seemed at all at his ease, 
smiled and gave her a sarcastic bow. 


241 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 

This is the first time you have honored 
me,” he observed, and pushed a chair slightly 
forward. ‘'Women are proverbially fond of 
controversy ; why deny this very young girl, 
the privilege of hearing our little talk ? ” 

The doctor, who perhaps saw more in this 
intrusion than the others, hesitated for a 
moment, with his brows lowered over his 
uneasy eyes, then he waved his hand as if 
dismissing a subject of no importance, and 
without saying yea or nay to the appeal which 
had just been made to him, he cried out in a 
set and desperate voice : 

“ I have borne with this impostor long 
enough. I do not know who you are,” he con- 
tinued, pointing imperatively at the man be- 
fore him, “ but that you are not Ephraim Earle 
is certain. Therefore you shall no longer en- 
joy Ephraim Earle’s rights or profit by the 
money which was given to Polly for a very dif- 
ferent purpose.” 

Earle, thus attacked, first raised his brows 
and then smiled suavely. “You would force 
an issue then,” he cried. “ Very well, I ’m 
ready. Why am I not Ephraim Earle, Dr, 


242 


Doctor Izard, 


Izard? You assert the fact, but that is not 
proving it. When we were young men to- 
gether you were not wont to stop at assertion.” 

'‘We were never young men together. You 
are a stranger to the town, a stranger to me. 
The letter which you wrote may deceive Polly, 
may deceive Clarke, may deceive every one 
else who reads, but it does not deceive me. 
What is this new invention you failed to pro- 
ject? Tell us on the spot or I will brand you 
as a wholesale deceiver up and down the town.” 

“ I ” the man stammered, his bold ef- 

frontery failing him for the moment. 

“ Have you forgotten it again f ” sneered the 
doctor, seeming to grow taller and broader as 
his antagonist dwindled. “ I expected you 
would hide behind that excuse. It is a con- 
venient one. You have forgotten it; well, we 
will let that pass and you shall tell me instead 
why your first one failed to operate the first 
time you tried it.” 

“ I will not,” shouted Earle, driven appar- 
ently to bay. “ That it did fail you remember 
and so do I, but after fourteen years devoted 
to other subjects I am not going to try and 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 


,243 


pick up those old threads again and explain to 
you every step by which I won success at last.” 

But I will wait,” suggested the doctor. 
“You shall not be hurried ; there is nothing 
more important to be done in town just now.” 

“ Is n’t there ? I think there is, Dr. Izard. 
You have shown yourself my enemy ever since 
I came to Hamilton ; but for reasons that were 
satisfactory to me I have let it pass, as you 
have let my so-called imposture pass. I did 
not wish to stir up old grievances ; but you 
attack me and must expect to be yourself 
attacked. Of what complaint did Huldah 
Earle die ? Answer me that ! Or I will 
brand for a ” 

“ Hush ! ” The word sprang from Clarke, 
who had seen the doctor cower, as if some 
awful weight were about to be heaved upon 
him. Weigh your words, Mr. Earle ; for if 
you utter an untrue one you shall be brought 
to dearly rue it.” 

“ I will weigh them,” answered the other, 
growing taller in his turn as the doctor shrank 
before him ; weigh them in the balance of 
this respected man’s innocence, Look at his 


244 


Doctor Izard, 


whitening cheek, his trembling form ! If he 
could mention the complaint which carried my 
wife away in the flower of her youth, do you 
think he would hesitate and turn pale before 
her child ? Or perhaps he has forgotten ; it is 
fourteen years ago, and as I have taken refuge 
in that excuse, why not he ? ” 

“ O God !” burst from Polly’s lips ; ‘Svhat 
horror is this ? ” 

But the doctor, goaded by this last sting, 
had roused himself. “I have not forgotten,” 
said he. I forget nothing ; not even the 
slight discoloration which always disfigured 
Ephraim Earle’s left eye, and which is absent 
from yours. But I do not know the exact 
cause of Mrs. Earle’s death. I never knew. 
If you were her husband, you would remember 
that I several times declared I was working in 
the dark, and even after she was dead acknowl- 
edged myself to have failed in my diagnosis, 
and wished you had called down physicians 
from Boston.” 

“ Oh, I remember ; but I was not deceived 
then by your humility, nor am I deceived by it 
now, I will have her body dug up. I will — ” 


245 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 

Oh, no ! no ! ” shrieked Polly, thrusting 
out her hands before her eyes. I — cannot — 
bear — this. I — I do not think the doctor can 
bear this. Look at him ! He is not sane ! 
He ” 

Hush, Polly ! I am sane enough,^’ came 
from the doctor with a sternness which was 
but the result of his overpowering emotion. 
'Hf I show agitation it is because dreadful 
memories have been awakened and because I 
must yet press hard against this most auda- 
cious man. Fellow ! where do you think the 
money came from which you have been expend- 
ing so freely to keep yourself out of jail ? ” 
''Ah! that is another small mystery with 
which I have thought it best not to concern 
myself.” 

But even while speaking he drew back, and 
a change passed over his bold countenance. 
Looking at the doctor with a strange and lin- 
gering gaze, he darted to a small rack at the 
end of the hall, and, tearing down a cloak and 
an old slouch hat, he thrust the one upon the 
doctor s head and the other about his shrinking 
shoulders. Then he drew back and surveyed 


246 Doctor hard. 

him. Suddenly he struck his forehead, and a 
triumphant smile, which was not without an 
evdl glare in it, lit up his features. 

'' Of course ! ” he cried, ‘‘ I might have 
known it ! You are the fellow who visited the 
Chicago hospital that night and who ” 

'‘And you are No. Thirteen!” was the 
quick response ; “ the man given over for 
dead I Oh, I see how you came to be here. 
Rascal ! Villain ! ” 

“ Doctor, allow me to return the compli- 
ment. Why did you use such subterfuges to 
transfer a fortune into my daughter’s hands ? 
Was it from a good motive or because you felt 
yourself guilty of her parent’s death, and so 
sought to make amends without awakening 
suspicion ? ” 

“ I should have whispered ten thousand dol- 
lars into your ear instead of one,” muttered 
the doctor, lost in contemplation of the other’s 
duplicity. 

“ I would have given no more sign for ten 
than for one,” answered Earle. “ Remember, 
I had just heard of an unknown sum be- 
queathed to my daughter, and the larger the 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 247 

hush money offered the greater would the 
fortune have appeared.’' 

Clarke, to whom these words were well nigh 
unintelligible, consulted Polly’s countenance, 
and seemed to question what she thought of 
them. But she was gazing at the doctor, 
wonder and repugnance in all her looks. 

Oh, do you mean that even this money is 
not all my own ? That it is not the gift of a 
stranger, but has come, in some incomprehen- 
sible way, from him f ” 

The doctor, stung by her tone, turned 
toward her, saw the slender finger pointing 
accusingly at him, and drooped his head with 
a gesture of despair. 

“ Does it lose its value,” he asked, ^'because 
it represents the labor and privations of twenty 
busy years?” 

Does it represent anything else ? ” she 
protested. “ Why should you give money 
to me ? ” 

‘'I cannot answer; not here. To-morrow 
at your mother’s grave I will. Come yourself, 
let your neighbors come, only see that one 
person is kept away. Years ago I loved Grace 


24S 


Doctor hard. 


Hasbrouck, and I would not have her the wit- 
ness of my shame. Keep her away, Clarke ! 
My task would be too difficult were she 
there.” 

Clarke, to whom this avowal was a revela- 
tion, stammered and bowed his head. Mr. 
Earle softly smiled. 

Then you avow — ” he began. 

But the doctor turned upon him and thun- 
dered, I avow nothing. I merely wish to 
prove to this town that you are an impostor, 
and I will do it to-morrow at seven at Huldah 
Earle’s grave. You are a bold man and a 
quick one, and have learned your lesson well. 
But there is one thing before which you must 
succumb and that is the presence of the true 
Ephraim Earle.” 

“ And you will produce him ? ” 

I will produce him.” 

And in such haste?” 

“Yes, in such haste.” 

There was something so astounding in this 
threat and in the resolve with which it was ut- 
tered that not only Clarke Unwin recoiled, but 
the hardy adventurer himself showed momen- 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 249 

tary signs of quailing. But he quickly recov- 
ered himself, and glancing at Polly, who stood 
clinging to Clarke, white as a wraith in her 
terror and amazement, cried aloud : Now I 

know you for a madman. Being Ephraim 
Earle myself, and innocent of any deeper 
crime than the one I have frankly acknowl- 
edged to you, I can afford to meet my double, 
even at my poor wife’s grave. Doubtless he 
will be a very good semblance of myself, and 
my only wonder is that the doctor has not pro- 
duced him sooner.” 

“ Laugh, laugh ! ” repeated the doctor, in a 
terrible voice, “ for to-morrow you will be in 
prison.” And stalking by them all, he pro- 
ceeded to the door, where he paused to say in 
a voice whose solemn tones rang long in their 
ears, ‘‘ Remember ! to-morrow morning at 
seven in the churchyard.” And he was gone. 

A silence which even the dazed adventurer 
dared not break followed this startling exit. 
Then Polly, in a quivering voice, murmured 
below her breath, “ He is mad ! I knew it be- 
fore I came here. Pray Heaven that he has 
not been made so by crime.” 


250 


Doctor Izard. 


At these words, so unexpected and so wel- 
come to the man whose position had been thus 
violently threatened, Earle lifted his head and 
cast a reassured look about him. 

Stick to that, my daughter,” he muttered, 
“stick to that ; it is the only explanation of his 
conduct ; ” and walking down the hall he added 
in a subdued tone, as he passed the hitherto 
unnoticed figure of a man standing in the rear 
passage, “ I will still have the five thousand 
dollars ! Nothing that this madman can do 
will hinder that” 


XX. 


DR. IZARD’s last DAY IN HAMILTON. 

I T was fortunate that there was no serious 
sickness in Hamilton that night, for the 
new physician was out of town and Dr. Izard 
inaccessible. Ever since nightfall there had 
been a rush of people to the latter’s gate, 
the news having already spread far and wide 
that the doctor had lately shown signs of 
mania, during which he had invited the whole 
town to come to the cemetery the following 
morning, there to witness, they scarcely knew 
what, but something strange, something which 
would turn the public mind against Ephraim 
Earle, whom he had once before, as all re- 
membered, accused of being an impostor. 
But they found the gate padlocked, and so 
were obliged to content themselves with hang- 
ing over the cemetery wall and catching what 

251 


252 Doctor Izard, 

glimpses they could of the doctor s light which 
shone clear but inhospitable from his open 
window. Not till the great clock struck twelve 
did the curious crowd separate and straggle 
away to their respective homes. 

Meanwhile what was the doctor doing ? 
We, who have penetrated more than once 
into his silent room, will do it once again and 
for the last time. We shall not see much. The 
doctor, whose face shows change, but not so 
much as one would expect, sits at his table 
writing. The name of Grace is at the top of 
the page over which he bends, and the words 
are few beneath, but they seem to be written 
with his heart’s blood ; for in signing them he 
gives vent to one irrepressible sob — he the man 
whose sternly contained soul had awed his fel- 
low-men for years and held all men and women 
and children back from him, as if his nature 
lacked sympathy for anything either weak or 
small. The night was far advanced when he 
folded this letter, directed it, and laid it face 
up on his desk. But though he must have 
been weary, he cast no glance at the settle in 
the dim corner of the room, but began to ar- 


253 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 

range his effects, clear his drawers, and put in 
order his shelves, as if preparing for the curi- 
osity of other eyes than those which had hith- 
erto rested so carelessly upon them. 

There was a fire lighted in the stove, and 
into this he thrust some papers and one or 
two insignificant objects which it seemed a 
strong effort to part from. As the blaze 
leaped up he cringed and partially turned away 
his head, but soon he was again amongst his 
belongings, touching some with a loving hand, 
others with a careless one, till the church 
clock, striking two, proclaimed that time was 
passing hurriedly. At this reminder he dropped 
the book he had taken up and passed to the 
green door. It was locked, as usual, but he 
speedily undid the fastenings, and carrying a 
lamp with him, stepped through the opening 
and up the spiral staircase. One of the steps 
creaked as he pressed it, and he sighed as he 
heard the familiar sound, possibly because he 
did not expect to hear it again. When in the 
hall he set down the lamp, but soon took it up 
again and began visiting the rooms. They 
had always been well looked after, and were 


254 


Doctor hard. 


neither unsightly nor neglected in appearance, 
but they seemed to have a painful significance 
for him as he looked, lamp in hand, from the 
open doorways. In this one his mother had 
stood as a bride, with her young friends around 
her, most of whom were laid away in the 
graveyard, which was never long absent from 
his thoughts. How he had loved to hear her 
tell about that night, and the dress which she 
wore, and the compliments she received, and 
how it was the happiest night of her life, till 
he came — her little child — to make every night 
joyful. Ah, if she could have foreseen — if she 
had lived ! But God was good and took her, 
and he of all his family was left to meet the 
doomful hour alone. In the room he now en- 
tered he had played as a boy, such merry plays, 
for he was a restless child and had a voice like 
a bell rung in the sunshine. Was that golden- 
haired, jovial little being who ran up and down 
these floors like mad and shouted till the walls 
rung again, the earnest of himself as he ap- 
peared at this hour shuddering in the mid- 
night darkness through the empty spaces of 
this great house ? And this little nook here, 


A Pickaxe a7id a Spade, 


255 


the dearest and most sacred of all in his eyes 
— could he bear to look at it with this crush- 
ing weight upon his heart and the prospect of 
to-morrow looming up in ghostly proportions 
before him, darkening every spot at which he 
gazed ? 

Yes, yes ; for here all that there has ever 
been of sweetness in his miserable life, all that 
there is of hope in that great world to come, 
centres and makes a holy air about him. 
Here she sat one day, one memorable, glorious 
day, with the sunshine playing on her hair 
and that sweet surprise in her look which told 
him more plainly than the faltering yes on her 
tongue thathis presumptuous love was returned, 
and that life henceforth promised to be a para- 
dise to him. Ah, ah, and he had not been 
satisfied ! He must needs be a great physician 
too, greater than any of those about him, 
greater than the great lights of Boston and 
New York, and so — But away with such 
thoughts ; it is not morning yet and this night 
shall be given up to sweeter memories and 
more sacred farewells. 

Stooping he knelt where she had sat, and put 


256 


Doctor Izard, 


his hands together as in childhood’s days and 
prayed, perhaps for the first time in years ; 
prayed as if his mother was overhearing him. 
Did he pray alone ? Was not she praying 
too in that shabby little room of hers, so un- 
worthy of her beauty and yet so hallowed by 
her resignation and her love ? 

Ah, yes, she was praying there to-night, but 
what would she be doing there to-morrow ? 
He uttered a cry as the thought stung him, 
and springing passionately to his feet went on 
and on, avoiding but one place in the whole 
house and that was where a little door led 
down to the cellar, at the side of the spiral 
staircase. When all was done he paused and 
said his last farewell. Who would walk these 
lonely halls after he had vanished from them ? 
Upon whom would these mirrors look and in 
whose hearts would the mystery of this place 
next impress itself? There was no prophet 
present to lift the veil, and dropping his chin 
on his breast the doctor descended the stairs 
and betook himself again to his desolate den. 

The stars were shining brightly over the 
graveyard as lie reseated himself at his desk. 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 257 

There were no signs of advancing morning 
yet, and he could dream, dream yet that he was 
young again and that Grace’s voice was in his 
ear and her tender touch on his arm, and that 
life was all innocence and hope, and that yon 
loud resounding clock, too loud for guilty men, 
rang with some other sound than that of death, 
doom, and retribution. 

Letting his head fall forward in his hands 
he sat while the dreary hours moved on, but 
when the clock struck six he raised his fore- 
head and facing the churchyard waited for 
the first coming streaks of light. And sitting 
so and waiting so we get our last glimpse of 
him before the hubbub and turmoil of the day 
set in, with the curious gaping crowd on the 
highway and the group among the graves, ask- 
ing why the doctor had not come out, and why 
the sexton was the first to appear on the scene, 
and why he bore a pickaxe and a spade and 
looked as solemn as if he were going to dig a 
grave for the dead. 

Seven o’clock had not struck, but Ephraim 
Earle was there, and Clarke and little Polly, 
crouching in terror behind her mother’s tomb ; 

17 


258 


Doctor Izard. 


and a physician was there too, summoned from 
Wells by Earle, some said, that there might 
be a competent person on hand to look after 
the doctor should he prove to be, as more than 
one person intimated, the madman he appeared ; 
and Dr. Sunderland was there, the good minis- 
ter ; and Mr. Crouse, who had had Polly’s 
matters in charge, and every one but the true 
Ephraim Earle, whom the doctor had promised 
to produce. 

But then it was not yet seven and Dr. Izard 
had said seven ; and when the hour did at last 
strike then every peering eye and straining ear 
became instantly aware that his door had 
opened and that he stood on the doorstep cold 
and silent, but alone. 

“ Where is the true Ephraim Earle you 
talked about? You promised to bring him 
here ! Let us see him,” shouted a voice, and 
the whole crowd that was pushing and elbow- 
ing its way into the graveyard echoed as with 
one voice : “ Let us see him ! let us see him ! ” 

The doctor, perfectly unmoved, stepped 
down from the threshold and came toward 
them quietly, but with a strange command in 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 


259 


his manner. “ I shall keep my word,” said he, 
and turned to the sexton. “ Dig!” he cried, 
and pointed to a grave at his feet. 

“Wretch! madman!” screamed Earle, 
“ would you desecrate my wife’s grave ? 
What do you mean by such a command ?” 

“You threatened to do this yourself but 
yesterday,” the doctor returned, “and why do 
you hesitate to have it done by me ? ” And he 
again cried to the hesitating sexton, “ Dig ! ” 
and the man, understanding nothing, but driven 
to his work by the doctor’s fierce eye and un- 
faltering lip, set himself to the task. 

“ Oh, what is he going to show us ? Do 
not, do not let him go on,” moaned Polly. 
“ I own this man to be my father; why do 
you let this terror go on before our eyes? ” 

“ This man whom you are ready to own as 
your father has called me the murderer of his 
wife,” retorted the doctor. “ I can only refute 
it by showing him the contents of this grave. 
Go on ! ” he commanded, with an imperative 
gesture to the sexton, “ or I will take the 
spade in my own hands.” 

“ Ah, he has done that once before ! ” mut- 


26 o 


Doctor hard. 


tered Polly. “ He is mad ! Do you not see 
it in his eyes ? ’’ 

The doctor, whose face had the aspect of 
marble, but who otherwise was quite like him- 
self in his best and most imposing mood, 
turned upon Polly as she said this, and smiled 
as only the broken-hearted can smile when con- 
fronted by a pitiful jest. 

“ Is there a physician here ?” he demanded. 
“Ah, I see Dr. Brotherton. You are in good 
time, I assure you, doctor. Feel my pulse 
and lay your hand on my heart, and answer if 
you think I have my wits about me and know 
what I say when I declare that only by inves- 
tigating this grave can the truth be known.” 

“ I do not need to do either, doctor. I 
know a sane man when I see him, and I must 
acknowledge that there are few saner than 
you.” 

A flush for the first time crept into Ephraim 
Earle’s hardy cheek ; he shifted restlessly on 
his feet, and his eyes fell with something like 
secret terror upon the hole that was fast 
widening at his feet. 

“ I believe you two are in league,” he cried; 


26 i 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 

“ but if Dr. Izard can prove himself innocent 
of the charges I have made against him, why, 
he is welcome to do so, even at the cost of my 
most sacred feelings.” 

“ When you strike the coffin, let me know,” 
said the doctor to the sexton. At these words 
a dreadful hush settled over the whole assem- 
blage, in which nothing could be heard but the 
sound of the spade. Suddenly the sexton, 
who was by this time deep in the hole he was 
making, looked up. 

I have reached it,” he said. 

The doctor drew in his breath and turned 
livid for a moment, then he cast a strange look 
away from them all across the deserted town, 
and seeming to gather strength from some- 
thing he saw there, he motioned the sexton to 
continue, while he said aloud and with steady 
emphasis : 

“ This man who confronts you at my side is 
not Ephraim Earle, because Ephraim Earle lies 
buried here ! ” and scarcely waiting for the 
anxious cries of astonishment evoked by these 
words to subside, he went rapidly on to say : 
“ Fourteen years ago he died by my hand on 


262 


Doctor Izard, 


this spot and was buried by me in this grave. 
God forgive me that I have kept this deed a 
secret from you so long.” 

The tumult which took place at this avowal 
was appalling. Men and women pushed and 
struggled till the foremost nearly fell into the 
grave. Polly shrieked and fell back into the 
arms of Clarke, while he who had been called 
Earle shrank all at once together and looked 
like the impostor he was. Dr. Izard alone re- 
tained his self-possession, the self-possession of 
despair. 

“ Listen,” he now cried, awing that tumultu- 
ous mass into silence by the resonant tones of 
his voice and the gesture which he made toward 
the now plainly-to-be-seen coffin. “It was not 
a predetermined murder. I was young, am- 
bitious, absorbed in my profession and eager 
to distinguish myself. His wife’s case was a 
strange one. It baffled me ; it baffled others. 
I could see no reason for the symptoms she 
showed, nor for the death she died. You 
know the truth ; to sound the difficulty and 
make myself strong against another such a 
case was but the natural wish of so young and 


A Pickaxe and a Spade. 263 

ambitious a man ; but when I asked Ephraim 
for the privilege of an autopsy he denied it to 
me with words that stung and inflamed me 
till what had been a natural instinct became 
an overmastering passion, and I determined 
that I would know the truth concerning her 
complaint if I had to resort to illegal and per- 
haps unjustifiable means. Her grave — you 
are standing by it — was made near, very near 
my office, and when the mound was cleared 
and the mourners had departed, my way 
looked so plain before me that I do not think 
I so much as hesitated at the decision I had 
formed, dreadful as it may seem to you now. 
When midnight came, — and it was a dismal 
night, the blackest of the year, — I stole out 
into this spot and began my unhallowed work. 
I had no light, but I needed none, and strange 
as it may seem, I reached the coffin-lid in an 
hour, and stooping down began to wrench it 
open, when suddenly I heard a step, then a 
murmur and then a short, fierce cry. The 
husband had suspected me and was there to 
guard his dead. 

“ Leaping from the grave, I confronted him 


264 


Doctor Izard, 


and a short, wild struggle ensued. He had 
thrown himself upon me in anger, and I, with 
the natural instinct of self-preservation, raised 
my spade and struck him, how surely I did not 
know at the moment. But when silence fol- 
lowed the struggle and a heavy fall shook 
the ground at my feet, I began to realize what 
I had done, and throwing myself upon the 
prostrate body, I laid my hand upon the heart 
and my cheek to the fast-chilling lips. . No 
action in the one, no breath upon the other; 
Ephraim Earle was dead, and I, his murderer, 
stood with his body at my feet beside his wife’s 
wide-opened grave. 

“ I had never known terror till that hour, 
but as I rose to my feet, comprehending as it 
were in an instant all that lay before me if his 
dead body was found at my door, the subtle- 
ness of the criminal entered into me, and spring- 
ing back into the grave I tore poor Huldah’s 
corpse from its last resting place, thrust her 
husband’s scarce cold body into her coffin, and 
pushed down the lid. Then I shovelled in the 
earth, and when all was done, I carried her 
poor remains into the house and buried them 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 265 

beneath the cellar floor, where they are still 
lying. And now you know my crime and now 
you know my punishment. Three months 
ago this man came into town and announced 
himself as Ephraim Earle, and marking the 
havoc he has made with the happiness of our 
innocent Polly, I have felt myself driven step 
by step to make this dreadful avowal. Now 
look into this grave for yourselves, and see if 
all that I have told you is not true.” 

And they did look, and though I need not 
tell you what they saw, there was no more talk 
in Hamilton of any lack of sanity on Dr. 
Izard’s part, nor did any man or woman there- 
after speak again of the adventurer by the 
name of Ephraim Earle. 

When the first horror was over and people 
could look about them once more, the doctor’s 
voice was heard for the last time. 

“When this man — who, as you see, would 
like to escape from this place, but cannot — 
came with his bravado into town, I told Polly 
that before she accepted his assertions as true, 
she should exact from him some irrefutable 
proof of his identity, and mentioned the medal 


266 


Doctor Izard. 


that had been given to her father by the 
French government. This was because the 
medal had not been found after his disappear- 
ance, and I thought it must have been upon 
his person when he was thrust into the grave. 
But to my horror and amazement, this fellow 
was able to produce it, — where found or how 
discovered by him I cannot tell. But he has 
never given evidence of having the money 
which accompanied the medal. Search, then, 
my friends, and see if it cannot be found among 
this dust, and if it can, give it to Polly, whom 
I have in vain endeavored to recompense for 
this loss, which was involuntary on my part 
and which has always been to me the most 
unendurable feature of my crime.” 

A cry of surprise, a shout of almost in- 
credulous joy, followed this suggestion, and 
Mr. Crouse held up to sight a discolored, 
almost indistinguishable pocketbook, which 
some one had the courage to pull out of 
the coffin. Then another voice, more solemn 
and methodical than any which had yet 
spoken, called out : “ Let us kneel and give 
thanks to God, who remembers the fatherless 


A Pickaxe and a Spade, 267 

and restores to the orphan her rightful patri- 
mony.” 

But another voice, shriller and more impera- 
tive still, put a stop to this act of devotion. 

“ Dr. Izard has confessed his sins, and now- 
let the impostor confess his. Who are you, 
man, and how happens it that you know all 
our ways and the whole history of this town ? ” 
And Lawyer Crouse shook the would-be Earle 
by the arm and would not let him go till he 
answered. 

“ I am — ” the old bravado came back, and 
the fellow for a moment looked quite reckless 
and handsome. “Ask Tilly Unwin who I 
am,” he suddenly shouted, breaking into a 
great laugh. “ Don’t you remember Bill Pres- 
cott, all you graybeards ? You used to hustle 
with me once for a chance at her side at sing- 
ing school and dance ; but you won’t hustle 
any longer, I am ready to swear ; the lady’s 
beauty is not what it was.” And with this 
unseemly jest he whirled about on one heel 
and gave his arm to a slim, light-complexion 
young man whom few had noticed, but who 
at no time had stepped far away from his side. 


268 Doctor Izctrd, 

' * 

The cry of “ Phil ! It is Phil, the scape- 
grace who was said to be dead a dozen years 
^ ago,’’ followed him out of the yard ; but he 
heeded nobody, his game was over, and his 
last card, a black one, had been played. 

And Dr. Izard ? When they thought of him 
again, he was gone ; whither, no one knew, nor 
did it enter into the heart of any one there to 
follow him. One person, a heavily draped wo-^^ 
man, who had not entered the graveyard, but 
who had stood far down the street during all 
that dreadful hour, thought she saw his slight 
form pass between her and the dismal banks 
of the river ; but she never rightly knew, 
for in her mind’s eye he was always before 
her, and this vision of his bowed head and 
shrunken form may have been, like the rest, a 
phantom of her own creation. 

THE END. 


6 8 7 # 





f 


I 









1 


j 




A 









^''>t..Tv'->- -N 

'■*' '-^ 


'“' ' * • ' /^ * 3 N » ’ * I I 1 * 


‘bo’' =^,.,- 

i-'^ -nt,. , 

’ 'im/A = 


t. '' ' 

C^ y >. a' 

O ** j s'* ^0 

""A ('O- »’"■ 

✓ . ^ 

Y K. 

o o' 

« 



S ^ 




c ^ 

^ ^ aV ^ 

v.a, 

O V <1 V o ^ ^ ^ 


^ ^ V?IA ^ 

% aW 

,o~c,%*'-* 

JiFn’C^y^ ‘>* 



» * , 





0 ^ ^ * 0 /■ ^‘ V 

’■ .%^,V V .V * 

- t >>> ^ 


rV ^ 

'.o'^ 




<< ' 0 » 1. ‘'''7 'O' 

* -I -»>'■ C “ ^ ♦ ''h * * ,0^ , • ' 

; -"o o'' ^ 




i> * 

O vO q.. . ^ 


O. O 

’ ,0-^ 


‘i>- 


9'' ^ ^ 0 /■ c- 

^ i. rA^fir 0, ^ .V, ■'»' 

O Na. .'A' . 

_ tT' <\‘ 



-1 'f' v' ^ » 

. 00 . 






r> 

<-0 



o 



9:. 


O i 







. y ^ ^ 

S « Cv\\Vr»W/^>5 cP «\'’ 




' o 5 , .' ^ » 

»■'”"' '^C- V^ollrl'^v 


Ns-J- 


-^v 



0 N f; 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



